Video: Rep. Paul Ryan, roundtable

Transcript of: Rep. Paul Ryan, roundtable

FMR. REP. NEWT GINGRICH (R-GA):I don't think right wing
social engineering
is any more desirable than
left wingsocial engineering
.

MR. GREGORY:Newt Gingrich
set off a huge battle on the right over
Medicare
, the debt, and the
GOP
's
2012
strategy. The target of that criticism,
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan
, whose plan to
reformMedicare
has made him the most talked about figure in Republican politics. And he is here this morning exclusively to respond to the controversy
Gingrich
created. Then, our
political
roundtable weighs in on all the fallout,
Gingrich
's rough start and changing story.

REP. GINGRICH:Those words were inaccurate and unfortunate, and I'm prepared to stand up and -- when I make a mistake, and I'm going to on occasion, I want to stand up and share with the
American people
that was a mistake.

MR. GREGORY:How are the
Democrats
trying to take advantage, and what does it all mean for the rest of the
GOP
contenders who are making fresh moves in the
campaign
?
Mitch Daniels
is now out, along with
Trump
earlier this week.
Pawlenty
is about to get in. And Huntsman in
New Hampshire
. Plus, the president's big
Mideast
speech and the rupture with

Israel. With us:ranking member of the
House Budget Committee
, Democrat
Chris Van Hollen
of
Maryland
; Republican strategist and columnist for
Time magazineMike Murphy
; chief
foreign affairs
correspondent for
NBC News
,
Andrea Mitchell
; columnist for
The Washington Post Eugene Robinson
; and author of the book "Too Big to
Fail
," now an
HBO
movie,
The New York Times
'
Andrew Ross Sorkin
.

Announcer:From
NBC News
in
Washington
,
MEET THE PRESS
with
David Gregory
.

MR. GREGORY:Good morning. Breaking news in the
2012
race for the
White House
.
Mitch Daniels
will not run for president. The
Indiana
governor, who many thought would arrive on a
white horse
to buck up the
GOPfield
, will not join the fray after all, announcing in a surprise statement overnight that family concerns made the difference. From the statement, he writes about his wife
Cheri
and his four

daughters the following:"What could have been a complicated decision was in the end very

simple:on matters affecting us all, our family constitution gives a veto to the women's caucus, and there is no override provision. Simply put, I find myself caught between two duties. I love my
country
;
I love my family
more." And with that, the
field
narrows. I want to begin here this morning, and I'm joined by the chairman of the
House Budget Committee
,
Paul Ryan
. Chairman, welcome back to
MEET THE PRESS
.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI):Hey, good morning,
David
.
Niceto be with you
.

MR. GREGORY:I want to get your, your reaction to the
Daniels
news because he is, in many ways, a kindred spirit on a lot of these fiscal issues,
fiscal discipline
. He won't be a part of that
2012
conversation as a candidate. A
big blow
to the
party
, do you think?

REP. RYAN:Well, he called me last night and gave me the news about this, so quite frankly, yes, I am disappointed. I think his candidacy would have been a great addition to this race, and I think it's unfortunate that he's not going to run.

MR. GREGORY:What about your own plans? There's a move afoot this morning, one of the big trending stories is whether you might actually join the race with a
fiscal discipline
message for
2012
. Will it happen?

REP. RYAN:Well, look, I've been very
clear
about this. I'm not running for president. I feel, because we are in a big
budgetdebate
, I'm in a great position as chairman of the
House Budget Committee
to really weigh in on this
debate
.
And I
feel at the moment we are in, I want to stay focused on where we are right now, and that is getting our fiscal
house
in order.

MR. GREGORY:So under no circumstances would you run or be on the ticket as a
number
two?

REP. RYAN:Look, I, I'm not going to get into all those hypotheticals. I'm not running for president, I'm not planning on running for president. If you're running for president, you've got to do a lot of things to line up a candidacy. I've not done any of those things. It's not my plan. My plan is to be a good chairman of the
House Budget Committee
and fight for the fiscal sanity of this nation.

MR. GREGORY:Understood. There's a little bit of door opening there, though, the door's a bit ajar. And you know how, you know how this works.

REP. RYAN:It's not door opening, it's just -- I do know how this works, and I'm not going to get into all these hypotheticals in the future. My point is I'm not running for president. You never know what opportunities present themselves way down the road. I'm not talking about right now.
And I
want to focus on fixing the fiscal
problems
of this
country
.
And I
really believe,
David
, where I am as chairman of the
House Budget Committee
puts me in a great position to, to be a great contributor to this
debate
.

MR. GREGORY:OK.
Stay where you are
, Chairman, please. The other big
political
story this week, of
course
, had to do with
Newt Gingrich
. He's in
Iowa
this weekend. He says his
presidential campaign
is alive and well despite a very tough week that began with his criticism of my guest,
Paul Ryan
, whose plan to
reformMedicare
is now the hot topic in
Washington
and on the
campaign
trail. We're going to continue our interview with Chairman
Ryan
in just a moment, but first some of the background. Just days after announcing his
White House
run,
Gingrich
made his 35th appearance on this
program
and shocked many by upending a centerpiece of the conservative
2012
playbook by calling
Ryan
's
Medicare
plan "right wing
social engineering
."

REP. GINGRICH:So there are
things you can do
to improve
Medicare
...

MR. GREGORY:But not what
Paul Ryan
is suggesting, which is completely changing
Medicare
.

REP. GINGRICH:I, I think that, I think, I think that that is too big a jump.

MR. GREGORY:Gingrich
made headlines, but not the ones he wanted.

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA):To somehow portray that as a radical step, I think, is a tremendous misspeak.

MR. RUSH LIMBAUGH:Cuts Paul Ryan
off at the knees, it supports the
Obama
administration.

MR. GREGORY:He was even confronted by a voter during his first swing through
Iowa
.

Unidentified Man:What you just did to
Paul Ryan
is unforgivable.

REP. GINGRICH:I didn't do anything to
Paul Ryan
.

Man:Yes, you did.

MR. GREGORY:By Tuesday,
Gingrich
began backtracking.

REP. GINGRICH:I made a mistake, and I called
Paul Ryan
today, who's a very close, personal friend, and I said that.

MR. GREGORY:But other conservatives had already moved in.

FMR. GOV. SARAH PALIN (R-AK):And it sounded pretty
clear
to me that
Newt Gingrich
's position, because he articulated this, was that
Paul Ryan
's plan would be
social engineering
, and he didn't like it.

MR. GREGORY:By Thursday,
Gingrich
moved on to denial.

REP. GINGRICH:It was not a reference to
Paul Ryan
. There was no reference to
Paul Ryan
in that answer.

MR. LIMBAUGH:Well, then what did you apologize to him about?

MR. GREGORY:Missteps that gave
political
commentators and comedians alike material all week long.

REP. GINGRICH:So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, and -- because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate.

MR. JON STEWART:You know, I, I've always found the hallmark of an honest conversation is one that begins with, "If you quote me directly, utilizing videotape of my comments in context, you're lying."

MR. GREGORY:The bigger issue beyond
Gingrich
's
campaign
is the sensitivity he exposed among
Republicans
to
Ryan
's
budget
plan, including
Medicare
. Just how far will and should the
GOP
go to tackle the debt in this
election
season?
And I
'm back with Chairman
Paul Ryan
. How did you respond to all of this?

REP. RYAN:Well, first of all, his quote was deeply inaccurate. It was a gross mischaracterization of the
House
Republican
budget
plan.
Newt
's acknowledged that, he's retracted it. And let's be
clear
what we're proposing here. This is as sensible and gradual as it gets. We're saying no changes for
Medicare
for people above the age of 55. And in order to keep the promise to current
seniors
who've already retired and organized their lives around this
program
, you have to
reform
it for the next generation. And the way in which we propose reforming for the next generation, it's in keeping with the
Bill Clinton
bipartisan commission

that -- to reform Medicare, it's an idea that's been around for a long time called premium support:guaranteed coverage options for
Medicare
where the
government
subsidizes the poor and the sick a whole lot more than the wealthy, and people get to choose. If I could
put it in
a nutshell, we're saying don't affect current
seniors
, give future
seniors
the ability to deny business to inefficient providers. As a contrary to that, the president's plan is to give the
government
the power to deny care to
seniors
by empowering a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats...

MR. GREGORY:What...

REP. RYAN:...to put
price controls
and rationing in place for current
seniors
. So I would argue that the opposite is true. We're being sensible, we're being rational, and we're saving this
program
. And you cannot deal with this debt
crisis
,
David
, unless you're serious about
entitlementreform
. And, unfortunately, I think we're going to have "mediscare" all over again, and that's unfortunate for the
country
.

MR. GREGORY:Right. Well, we're going to, we're going to get to that, Congressman. Was this demagoguery on the part of
Newt Gingrich
?
That's what
you warned happens on both sides when you were here in April on the approach to big
problems
.

REP. RYAN:Yes.

MR. GREGORY:This was demagoguery on the part of
Newt Gingrich
.

REP. RYAN:No, I think that, that quote is deeply inaccurate. It's a gross mischaracterization. And again,
Newt
has already said that it was wrong, he was wrong to say it, and he's, he's basically retracted the statement. And he has apologized to me personally for that.

MR. GREGORY:Well, but, but, here's the issue.

REP. RYAN:It's not about me personally, this is about the
House
Republican
budget
.

MR. GREGORY:Right. Right, it -- I don't think anybody thinks it's about you personally. The

Wall Street Journal editorialized on Tuesday the following, I'll put it up on the screen:"Mr.
Gingrich
chose to throw his former allies in the
GOP House
not so much under the bus as off the
Grand Canyon
rim. ... "Our guess is that a politician as experienced as Mr.
Gingrich
knew exactly what he was doing and that as he runs for president, he
wants
to appear to be more moderate than he has sounded over the last, oh, 20 years, by suddenly triangulating against the
GOP House
he once led." The implication there, Mr. Chairman, is that he did know what he was doing because what he said out loud is what a lot of
Republicans
I've spoken to say privately, and they're scared to death about the politics of what you're proposing. They think it's just handing a huge issue to the
Democrats
.

REP. RYAN:Look, of
course
people are scared of
entitlementreform
because every time you put
entitlementreform
out there, the other
party
uses it as a
political
weapon against you. Look, both parties have done this to each other. Here's the
problem
,
David
. If we don't get serious about these issues, if we don't get serious about the drivers of our debt, we're going to have a debt
crisis
. And the irony of this is all if we don't fix these programs, people who rely on these benefits are going to get cut the first, they're going to be hurt the worst under a debt
crisis
. We're saying, if we fix this now, we can keep the current promise to current
seniors
and people 10 years away from retiring. If we allow politics to get the best of us...

MR. GREGORY:Mm-hmm.

REP. RYAN:...and if we allow the demagoguery to sink in and do nothing, then we will have a debt
crisis
. Then current
seniors
will get hurt. So who's being rational and responsible here? I think we want to get above all of this. Look, here in
Wisconsin
, people are ready for answers. They want
leadership
. The
Senate Democrats
haven't even proposed or passed a
budget
for 753 days. So we
House
Republicans have put out a plan to fix this
problem
, save
Medicare
, and, in fact, pay off the debt
over time
.

MR. GREGORY:All right, but, but Chairman...

REP. RYAN:We have seen nothing of the like from the president and the
Senate Democrats
.

MR. GREGORY:OK. But here's the
problem
. According to our polling, nearly eight in 10 Americans do not want to cut spending for
Medicare
, even in the name of cutting the debt. You, I assume, are not doing all of this as an intellectual exercise. You would actually like to get
reform
accomplished. There's the question of how much damage
Newt Gingrich
has done, former speaker of the
House
,
presidential candidate
. He was in
Iowa
and he was confronted by a voter, and I want to play a portion of that and get your response to it.

Unidentified Man:What you just did to
Paul Ryan
is unforgivable.

MR. NEWT GINGRICH:I didn't do anything to
Paul Ryan
.

Man:Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the, in the
House
.

MR. GINGRICH:No. I said...

Man:You're an embarrassment to our
party
.

MR. GINGRICH:Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.

MR. GREGORY:How much damage has he done?

REP. RYAN:I -- how much damage have I done?

MR. GREGORY:No. How much damage has
Newt Gingrich
done to your effort to
reformMedicare
?

REP. RYAN:Oh,
Newt
.
Excuse
me. I didn't hear you correctly.

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

REP. RYAN:Look, I'm not a pundit, I'm a
policy maker
. I'll let you and your panel figure that out, and that's up to the voters to figure this stuff out. The point is this, we've got to get beyond this and we've got to get on to a serious conversation about what it takes to fix the fiscal
problems
in this
country
. And if we don't tackle these
problems
now while we have time, they're going to tackle us. And our whole point here is we need to pre-empt and avert a debt
crisis
, and
the way we are
-- have proposed to do that is do it on our
terms
and prevent people who are currently retired and people about to retire from having severe disruptions in their lives.

MR. GREGORY:Wait, but, Congressman...

REP. RYAN:And so the people of
Iowa
...

MR. GREGORY:...you're not a pundit.

REP. RYAN:...and the people of
New Hampshire
can figure this stuff out.

MR. GREGORY:But -- yeah, but wait a second. But that, but that really is a dodge. You are the chairman of the
committee
, yes. You're serious about
entitlementreform
, yes. You're also a politician. You say you want to do it on your
terms
. Law does not
become
law without building
political
consensus and you don't have that. And now you've had a major figure in the
Republican Party
say this was right wing
social engineering
. So I'm wondering how much you do feel undercut...

REP. RYAN:So...

MR. GREGORY:...in actually getting this passed, which I assume is your goal.

REP. RYAN:First of all, if people are describing this accurately in polls, it's far more popular than the poll you've referenced. Second of all, leaders are elected to lead. I don't consult polls to tell me what my principles are or what our policies should be. Leaders change the polls. And we are leading in the
House
. We are not seeing this kind of
leadership
from the president of the
United States
. The
Senate Democrats
haven't even proposed or passed a
budget
for 753 days, and we have a
budget crisis
. So yes, we are going to lead, and we are going to try to move these polls and change these polls because that's what the
countrywants
. I, I just did 19
town hall meetings
,
David
, in, in the district that I work for that went for
Obama
,
Dukakis
,
Clinton
and
Gore
. People are hungry for solutions, and I really fundamentally believe that the people are way ahead of the
political
class.
And I
think they're going to reward the leader who steps up to the plate and actually fixes these
problems
, no matter how much demagoguery, no matter how much distortion, no matter how much
political parties
try to scare
seniors
in the next
election
. I just don't think they're going to buy it this year, and they're hungry for leaders to fix this
problem
before it gets out of our
control
.

MR. GREGORY:Well, let me,
let me follow
up on that point. The president's communication adviser,
Dan Pfieffer
, put this on his
Twitter
feed this week. He wrote, "Biggest takeaway from the
Gingrich
flap, ending
Medicare
as we know it is the new
GOPlitmus test
." You'd expect that from
Democrats
, of
course
, and you'll hear a lot more of it. But also from the right,
Dick Armey
and
Matt Kibbe
in
The Wall Street Journal
from
FreedomWorks
, behind the
tea party
movement, they write this, "
Medicarereform
has risen to the top of the
national
agenda and will be the defining issue of next year's elections. Any serious
GOPpresidential candidate
must be absolutely
clear
on this issue. Kicking the can down the road is no longer an option. A candidate who is timid on
entitlement
reforms is not qualified to be president." Is that your view?

REP. RYAN:Yes, it is my view. I, I
agree
with that.
And I
do believe -- look, you cannot ever fully balance the
budget
and pay off the debt unless you address the drivers of our debt, our healthcare entitlements, our entitlements. And so we need a leader who's
willing
to talk about these things and actually do these things. We don't have that leader in the
White House
right now. We don't have these leaders running the
Senate
right now. And, yes, I
agree
with
Dick Armey
and
Matt Kibbe
in that op-ed, which is if you want a real leader to fix
America
's
problems
, you've got to deal with these
entitlement
issues before they get out of our
control
. And so, yeah, I
agree
with that sentiment.

MR. GREGORY:Then why don't you see more
Republicans
who want to be the
country
's leader, standing up and saying, "I am for the
Ryan
plan,
full stop
, including
Medicare
reforms." Even
Michele Bachmann
has said there's an asterisk next to her support on
Medicare
because she has concerns that has been backed up by
Congressional
analysis suggesting that costs for
seniors
would go up under your plan, what would be -- you call premium support, others call vouchers, giving them money to buy insurance in the private marketplace.

REP. RYAN:Well, look, first of all, I have no
problems
with somebody who's offering alternative solutions to fix this
problem
. I have
problems
with people who aren't offering any solutions, who are just playing politics. You know, as far as the costs are concerned, here's what we propose. If you're under 55, when you
becomeMedicare
eligible, you get to pick among guaranteed coverage options provided by and regulated by
Medicare
. We don't subsidize the wealthy nearly as much as
middle income
, and we subsidize the poor and the sick a whole lot more than
everybody else
. We think that's a smart
way to go
. Choice in competition, giving the senior the power to deny business to inefficient providers. The alternative to this,
David
, is a rationing scheme, are the 15 bureaucrats the president's going to appoint next year on his panel to ration
Medicare
spending. We don't think we should give the
government
the power to ration spending to
seniors
. We want to give future
seniors
the ability to make choices. And we want to subsidize people who are
middle income
and lower income and sick more than we subsidize the wealthy. And doing it this way, according to the
CBO
and the trustees, saves
Medicare
not only for the current generation with no disruptions, but for the next generation. It helps us pay off our
national debt
. These are the kinds of issues we've got to tackle if we're going to avert a debt
crisis
.

MR. GREGORY:Well, are you
willing
to negotiate on this?

REP. RYAN:And if you want to be a serious leader, you've got to do this.

MR. GREGORY:Are you
willing
to negotiate on your
Medicare
plan?

REP. RYAN:Say that again.

MR. GREGORY:Because it's unlikely to pass the
Senate
.

REP. RYAN:Of
course
. Absolutely.

MR. GREGORY:You will negotiate.

REP. RYAN:Of
course
, we would. I mean, this is the legislative process. But let me be
clear
, we're the only ones who put out a plan to fix this
problem
. We have nothing, nothing from the president or from the
Senate Democrats
that come anywhere close to averting a debt
crisis
and fixing our
problem
.
House
Republicans put out a plan that cut $6.2 trillion over the next 10 years to get this
economy
growing, to save our safety net, to guarantee health and retirement security, and to pay off our debt. We're offering details. We have no partners
on the other side
of the aisle offering anything but misleading scare tactics.

MR. GREGORY:All right. Before you go, what about the debt ceiling negotiations? Do you think they'll be a deal, or will this go
down to the wire
?

REP. RYAN:Well, first of all, I think there will be a deal, and it'll probably take a while. Look, we have till August. It's May right now. This is going to take time. Our position's really simple. For every
dollar
the president
wants
to raise the debt limit, we're saying let's cut more than a
dollar
's
worth
of spending. He's asked for a $2 trillion increase in the debt limit, we've laid out $6.2 trillion in spending cuts. So we can show the president plenty of ways and areas to cut more than a
dollar
's
worth
of spending and it's very important for the
credit markets
, for our
economy
to show that we're going to get this situation under
control
, that we're going to get the debt stabilized and get spending under
control
, as we deal with this debt limit. Nobody
wants
default to happen, but at the same time, we don't want to
rubber stamp
just the debt limit increase that shows we're not getting our situation under
control
.

MR. GREGORY:All right. Chairman
Ryan
, I apologize for that satellite delay. Sometimes that gets in the way.
Thank you very much
for dealing with that, and thank you for being on.

REP. RYAN:Thank you.

MR. GREGORY:And coming up, battleground
2012
, the changing
GOPfield
. What the overnight news that
Mitch Daniels
will not run means for the rest of the contenders. Plus, more on the
Gingrich
fallout. Did he upend the
Republicans
'
2012campaign
strategy, and can his candidacy survive such an early blow? Plus, rising tensions in the
Middle East
as
President Obama
delivers a big speech on
U.S.
policy in the region. We'll talk about the politics of it all with our roundtable. Joining us, Congressman
Chris Van Hollen
of
Maryland
, Republican strategist
Mike Murphy
,
NBC
's
Andrea Mitchell
,
The Washington Post
's
Eugene Robinson
, and
The New York Times
'
Andrew Ross Sorkin
.

MR. GREGORY:Coming up, what does
Daniels
' decision not to run mean for the rest of the
GOPfield
? Plus, analysis of
Gingrich
's rocky week, and the riff between the
U.S.
and
Israel
after the president's big
Middle East
speech on Friday, and reaction to
Ryan
's interview. Our roundtable, they're all here,
ready to go
and weigh in -- Congressman
Chris Van Hollen
,
Mike Murphy
,
Gene Robinson
,
Andrea Mitchell
and
Andrew Ross
Sorkin -- right after this brief
commercial break
.

MR. GREGORY:We're back, joined now by our roundtable: Republican strategist and columnist for
Time magazine
,
Mike Murphy
in from
Los Angeles
; Democratic congressman and ranking member of the
House Budget Committee
,
Chris Van Hollen
of
Maryland
; author of the new book -- not the new book,
best selling book
, "Too Big to
Fail
," but it's now going to be a new
HBO
movie,
The New York Times
'
Andrew Ross Sorkin
; chief foreign correspondent for
NBC News
,
Andrea Mitchell
; columnist for
The Washington Post
,
Eugene Robinson
. Welcome to all of you. Congressman, I want to start with you, fresh off this
Paul Ryan
interview. He's not giving ground on
Medicare
after patching things up with
Newt Gingrich
. Where does that leave negotiation on whether any kind of
entitlementreform
concerning
Medicare
can be agreed to?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD):Well, you're right,
David
, it sounds like the
Republicans
are doubling down on their plan to end the
Medicare
guarantee. You know,
Newt Gingrich
had it right a week ago on this show. It is a radical plan, it is right wing
social engineering
, and it is, for this reason, because they take away the
Medicare
guarantee. They say to
seniors
, you've got to go into the private insurance market. And the independent

Congressional Budget Offices point out two things:In that market, prices keep going up; and under their plan, support for
seniors
under
Medicare
goes down. Which is why it's going to cost
seniors
more and more every year as this goes on.

MR. GREGORY:But he is saying that he is
willing
to negotiate, and he's also saying, accurately, that you
Democrats
don't have a plan and we have a
budget crisis
.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Well, two things there.
Number
one, the president has put a plan on the table. And let's remember that the
Affordable Care Act
, the
healthcare reform
bill, had some significant
Medicarereform
. In fact, as, as
Paul
indicated, in the last elections, they ran all these ads against
Democrats
. We ended the overpayments to the
Medicare
advantage plans. We made some other reforms to incentivize provision of value of care over volume of care, and there are other things that had been proposed, and the president mentioned some of those. But here's where the
Republicans
have not come to the table. You didn't hear one word about how we need to deal with the revenue side of the equation. Every bipartisan commission that has looked at our
deficit
and debt
problem
has said you can't do it with a one-sided, lop-sided approach, which is what the Republican plan is. You need a revenue component. These guys won't even
agree
to get rid of the subsidies for the
big oil
companies. If you're serious about the
deficit
, why won't you come to the table and say, when you got record
gas prices
, record profits, you're not going to ask the, the
oil companies
to chip in and get rid of their subsidies.

MR. GREGORY:Final, final point on this.
The Republicans
say, "Look, the
prescription drug
benefit under
Medicare
came in under
budget
and is very popular, and that the current path is simply unsustainable, to keep giving a guarantee to people that can't be paid for without absolutely busting the
budget
and increasing the
deficit
." Is the Democratic
leadership
prepared to put reformulating
Medicare
in some dramatic way on the table?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:What we've said about
Medicare
is what the president said, which is that,
number
one, some reforms have been made;
number
two, additional reforms can be made. But that's not the place you start, by going to say, you know, beneficiaries are going to take the
big hit
. There are other reforms you can make. Let me give you one example. When it comes to prescription drugs, you mentioned
Medicare Part D. In
fact, under the
Medicaidprogram
, the taxpayer gets a much better deal in
terms
of the
price
for the purchase of drugs. We've said for folks who are on
Medicare and Medicaid
, dual eligible, "Take the lower
price
, save the taxpayers some money." So there's a lot you can do. And the
Republican proposal
, the reason it's such bad politics is because it's terrible policy.

MR. GREGORY:All right. We're going to come back to this. I want to invite everybody now to weigh in, we'll weigh in on this. But I want to get to some of the big
political
news this morning, and we'll put up the headline this morning from the
Indianapolis Star
,
Mike Murphy
,
Daniels
decision, not running. "I love my
country
;
I love my family
more." This is a
big deal
. I said at the top, this is -- he was seen that...

MR. MIKE MURPHY:Yeah.

MR. GREGORY:...candidate on the
white horse
for a lot of people.

MR. MURPHY:Old rule of politics, if you're going to run, make sure your wife is going to vote for you. And, you know, so I thought he had a great statement, and it's true. People were very excited about him as a candidate. He would have been a heavyweight in the contest. So now we're back to where we were. I think there's a little too much talk in
Washington
about there's not enough excitement. There may not be enough in
Washington
. For real voters, it hasn't even begun yet.
And I
think there's only one last
Hamlet
question, which is
Chris Christie
of
New Jersey
, who is a big Republican star, will he take another look at a late entry, which I think is possible. That would shake up the race. If not, I think you're going to have a lot of noise candidates around, but it's going to be down to
Romney
, Huntsman,
Pawlenty
, and then a kind of an entertaining candidate who won't get nominated, one of will emerge, maybe
Herman Cain
.

MR. GREGORY:Well,
Andrea Mitchell
, what about
Paul Ryan
? I mean, he didn't
close the door
completely to being on the ticket. He said, "I'm, I'm not running for president."

MS. ANDREA MITCHELL:He didn't
close the door
. I think that because of the
Medicare
-- the toxicity really of what he's proposed on
Medicare
in
terms
of politics, that I think it would be very, a very big reach for him to be nominee of the
Republican Party
. But he ought to be considered. Certainly, I think that
Mike
would say for vice president, he could be in those sweepstakes. He -- when he said on -- to you that leaders change polls...

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL:That, that's
leadership
that people are hungry for.

MR. MURPHY:Yeah.

MR. GREGORY:And he did say that anybody running in
2012
basically has to be either with him or against him, that he is that, you know, in that, in that
center
place.

MR. GREGORY:You see who's in, including as of tomorrow
Tim Pawlenty
and
Herman Cain
got in over the weekend. And then that additional list of who's kind of out there but not officially in.
Mitt Romney
is going to be in, but he's just not official. John Huntsman and Santorum,
Rudy Giuliani
,
Michele Bachmann
, and
Sarah Palin
. And look at the polling, as of now, just so we have some context around all of this.
Romney
is still at 20 percent.
Palin
at 12 percent. She said this week she's got fire in the belly.
Gingrich
at nine, and so on and so forth. Where does it stand?

MR. ROBINSON:Well, it, it's very confused.
Mitt Romney
, everything that's happened the last few weeks has been very good for
Mitt Romney
.

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

MR. ROBINSON:I mean, he, he is sort of the default option, I think, for the
Republican Party
.
Chris Christie
has made
Sherman
-like statements about not running this time. I think he -- I, I personally think he's serious about that, and I think one reason is that he can look ahead to
2016
...

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

MR. ROBINSON:...and, and see that as a better, better chance.

MR. GREGORY:What about the message,
Andrew Ross Sorkin
? I mean, you cover
Wall Street
, you cover all things financial. A
fiscal discipline
message, a "We're going to get it right on the
economy
" message, that is still the right message for
Republicans
going into next year.

MR. SORKIN:I got to tell you, I got an email while the show was going on, while
Ryan
was just speaking, and even though the
Medicare
plan may be unpopular, the view by a
Wall Street CEO
was this guy at least is proposing something.

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

MR. SORKIN:I think they like the idea of
leadership
. They want to get behind that. I don't know if
Ryan
is their man. I think from a money perspective you're seeing all the money go to
Romney
. But I think there's a real
worry
that there is a lack of
leadership
. And, and as one
CEO
said to me this week, "At this point, we are only playing for the
Senate
." I mean, in
terms
of what our real
opportunity
is, because I don't think they have someone who has really ignited, ignited at least the
business community
.

MR. GREGORY:Right.

MR. MURPHY:Yeah, the
Senate
is the hedge on the
presidential race
.

MR. GREGORY:Right.

MR. MURPHY:Let me speak about
Ryan
for a minute to defend him, because there is a feeling in the
country
-- and it's right, I believe, at least a perception -- that a lot of people in
Congress
, you know, they're on the federal payroll, and they spend a lot of their time maneuvering to get re-elected.
Paul Ryan
, whether you like the plan or you don't like the plan, is about the bravest guy in
Washington
because he's taking on the
entitlement
monster, which is a huge threat. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, everybody agrees this spending thing is out of
control
. And so
Ryan
's got a plan that involves a lot of
political
pain. Whether it's fair or not, it's incredibly brave. What I'd like to see is some grown-up politics for a change. So instead of the
Democrats
just doing the "mediscare," let's have an equally adult, somewhat scary plan from the left, so voters can have a real comparison because they're grown-ups. Pick the harder choice rather than the hard choice vs. the demography of the -- you know -- and
Medicare
as we know it, which is a scam.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:But, but, but...

MR. GREGORY:Congressman -- yeah. Yeah.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Mike
,
Mike
,
political
courage on the
Republican side
means taking on the revenue piece. That's why you've had a couple folks get in so much -- Senator
Coburn
raised his head on that.
Grover Norquist
tried to chop it off. It doesn't take a lot of courage on the
Republican side
to slash
Medicaid
by $700 billion.

MR. MURPHY:Well, you know, I'm going to
agree
with you on, on the revenue thing. But...

REP. VAN HOLLEN:It doesn't -- but -- here are these guys that they won't even
agree
to say to the
oil companies
, "Look, you've got to get...

MR. MURPHY:Yeah, I know. But look...

REP. VAN HOLLEN:No, but,
Mike
-- but, Mike...

MR. MURPHY:But, Congressman, with all due respect, very, very quickly...

REP. VAN HOLLEN:...this, this is the issue.

MR. MURPHY:...when you go to the
oil company
and all this stuff, you're going to the poll test and stuff to win the
election
, it's your job.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Yeah. Yeah, Mike, Mike...

MR. MURPHY:But will you guys endorse
Simpson-Bowles
? Because I will. I'd do it right now as a Republican.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Let, let, let's go to go in -- OK. I think there's...

MR. MURPHY:I'm for a little bit of taxes.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:There's a lot of good in
Simpson-Bowles
, and what the
Simpson-Bowles
did was they took a balanced approach.

MR. MURPHY:Right.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:The Republicanbudget
is not balanced. In fact...

MR. MURPHY:But where's the Democrat to
balanced budget
?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Well, wait.

MR. GREGORY:But let me, let me get in here for a second.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:The, the, the, the co-chairs of
Simpson-Bowles
,
Simpson
and
Bowles
, said that the Republican plan was not balanced. And they described the president's proposal the other day as more balanced and comprehensive.

MR. GREGORY:Well, let, let me just pull out -- I want to pull out on this.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:So let's be real here.

MR. GREGORY:Congressman, I want to pull out on this because the larger issue here is what will be rewarded? Will it be
leadership
on seeking to solve the most intractable
problems
, or will too much pain be too painful? You said
Newt Gingrich
had it right. There are certainly those on the Democratic side who were listening, the, the professionals. And the group that's
Priorities USA Action
, formed by somebody -- deputy press secretary
Bill Burton
, now is doing an ad in
South Carolina
against
Mitt Romney
, putting the
Gingrich
flap at the
center
of it. Let's play that out.

Ad Announcer:Newt Gingrich
says the Republican plan that would essentially end
Medicare
is too radical. Governor
Haley
thinks the plan is courageous and
Gingrich
shouldn't be cutting conservatives off at the knees.
Mitt Romney
says he's on the same page as
Paul Ryan
, who wrote the plan to essentially end
Medicare
. But with
Mitt Romney
, you have to wonder, which page is he on today?
Priorities USA Action
is responsible for the content of this advertisement.

MR. GREGORY:So,
Andrea Mitchell
, this is where the
debate
is going.

MS. MITCHELL:The
debate
is going exactly to that point, and the -- both sides trying to demonize the other. And what you're saying and what
Mike Murphy
is saying is that people want
leadership
.

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL:People want someone to show some guts here.
Paul Ryan
has shown considerable guts. But you're, you're, you're correct that nobody on the
Republican side
is showing any courage on the tax front. And unless taxes are part of the mix, every grown-up knows that it, it can't reach a solution.

MR. GREGORY:Right.
Andrew
:

MR. SORKIN:But I'm noticing, you know,
Ryan
opened the window today to actually come to
middle
. He
wants
another proposal. He
wants
a proposal from the
Democrats
.
And I
think they're -- if they can actually -- I think there's an
opportunity
to get there. So I think you give
Ryan
credit for at least bringing something to the table, and then when do the
Democrats
come and what do they come with?

MR. GREGORY:Let me get
Gene
in here. Go ahead, Gene. Yeah.

MR. ROBINSON:Just, just point out two things.
Number
one, the
Republicans
will not talk about tax increases.
Democrats
talk about a lot of
budget
cuts. They -- you know, the question for
Democrats
is how, how deeply do you cut the
budget
? So, so -- and, and the second thing is on
Medicare
, people don't want it to be a voucher
program
. They don't want the kind of change
Paul Ryanwants
. So you can call that
leadership
, but if nobody
wants
to follow, it's not
leadership
. It's not what people want.

MR. MURPHY:The Democrats
talk about goals for
budget
cutting. They politically don't want to talk about actual
budget
cuts because they don't want their voodoo to be done to them. So you can argue, I think correctly, that the
Republicans
are, are very -- you know, they're not ready to take heat on taxes. But the
Democrats
aren't ready to take heat on any kind of broad- based tax or on spending cuts for real.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Well, actually, that's not true,
Mike
. You know that. A broad-based tax is exactly what the president and the
Democrats
proposed. We've said let's go back to the same rates that were in place during the
Clinton administration
for the folks at the very top. That's a broad...

MR. MURPHY:That's not broad-based. You just want to tax the top.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:No, no, no. No, no, that -- it's going...

MR. MURPHY:You can tax everybody in
America
over $100,000 100 percent, you won't pay the
deficit
this administration's racked up.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:And that's a big chunk of the money. Now, look, the bipartisan groups have said you need balance. If you want to, if you want to have -- come to the table, we have a forum. Vice president's leading some talks.
The Republicans
have said that they're not going to deal with revenue as part of that.
Democrats
have said we're prepared to deal with the cuts, we're prepared to make cuts.

MR. SORKIN:It's -- the
Dems
go one way and the
Republicans
go the other way, and nobody goes halfway.

MR. MURPHY:Right.

MR. GREGORY:Let me, let me get in, let me get in here for a second. Let me get in here for a second. I'm going to go to a break in just a minute, I want to ask one substantive question. And that is, will the idea of caps on spending survive to get us through this debt ceiling issue and then perhaps an agreement on the
budget
?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:No. What, what the president's proposed is a cap on the
deficit
and debt.
That's what
we all are interested in.
That's what
we need to address is the
deficit
.

MR. GREGORY:But the
Republicans
say, no, you got to cap
discretionary spending
, and then the appropriators can work.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:We, we say, again, it's the question of balance. We think we want to reduce the
deficit
. That would involve spending cuts, it involves the revenue piece. By saying spending, what you're saying is you want to whack
Medicare and Medicaid
only, you only want to deal with the spending side. Again, the bipartisan groups that have looked at this, every one of them have said any credible plan requires both.

MR. GREGORY:All right, that...

REP. VAN HOLLEN:That's what
we're saying.

MR. GREGORY:All right, so I can't promise that the
debate
won't continue during the commercial, but we're going to take one. And when we come back, I want to talk more about the politics, specifically the fallout for
Newt Gingrich
on this very rough week that, as we pointed out, started with his comments on this
program
last week. More with this roundtable right after this.

MR. GREGORY:We are back with more from our roundtable. And when I say we are back, this weekend that's no small thing because there's a lot of talk about
the end of the world
. And so far, so good on that. So let's go back to politics and here was the cartoon out of
Missouri
-- Columbia,
Missouri
, from
John Darkow
, of
Newt Gingrich
shooting himself in the foot right after he announced, and that's the
Medicare
statement that is around the foot that he's shooting.
Mike Murphy
, how much damage has
Newt Gingrich
done to himself?

MR. MURPHY:Well,
Newt
's a lot of things, but very few people in practical politics see him as a dream candidate. He's just never been a real vote-getter. And that said, he's a powerful, intellectual force. He's had a very bad week. I have to kind of step away, though, because the maneuvers of
Newt
's
campaign
is kind of like closely observing the maneuvers of the
Belgian Navy
. It's interesting, but it may not be that important. I don't think he was ever going to be a candidate who would get nominated. So the question is, when will the focus go to the guys who actually can get nominated?
Newt
could be a catalyst in all of this. He'll be a factor, but less of a factor, I think, than even people like me who didn't think he would be that powerful a week ago.

MR. GREGORY:And
Gene Robinson
, you wrote this in your column in
The Washington Post
on Thursday, "
Newt Gingrich
's meltdown on the launch pad.
Prominent Republicans
immediately grabbed their pitchforks, lit their torches and formed an angry mob. From opinion surveys and town-hall meetings, it was already
clear
that the
Ryan
plan to fundamentally alter the
Medicareprogram
is deeply unpopular and that ultimately it is likely to hurt the
party
at the polls. Now
one of the best
-known figures in the
party
, a candidate for the
presidential nomination
, was breaking ranks." You may be left of
center
, but the truth is my own reporting among
Republicans
is that that is spot on, that they are scared to death of the politics of this thing.

MR. ROBINSON:Absolutely. They heard it at, at
town hall meetings
, they, they look at the polls. I mean, this is, this is really tough. This is an unpopular stance that
Paul Ryan
has led them to. It may be brave, but it's not popular. And so
Newt Gingrich
comes out and slams it. I, I think sensibly in
terms
of his own narrow
political
interests, perhaps. Or he, he could see it that way. But his
campaign
, I think, I mean, it's toast at this point.
And Iagree
with
Mike
that maybe it wasn't going to go anywhere anyway.

MR. GREGORY:And
Andrea Mitchell
, he hasn't stopped talking. He's still talking this morning. He told
Rush Limbaugh
, as we indicated, he wasn't even speaking about
Paul Ryan
, which, I mean, is just, on its face, absurd.

MS. MITCHELL:He is twisting himself in the wind over this because he keeps changing the story and trying to create a new story and the importance of the politics that
Gene
was just pointing out, just look at the
special election
in
New York
. This is
Jack Kemp
's old seat, the 26th. And the
Medicare
issue has
become
, you know...

MR. ROBINSON:Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL:...a pivotal issue that should, should be an automatic Republican seat and now is not automatic.

MR. MURPHY:But let me put a footnote there, there are two Republican candidates essentially and one Democrat.

MS. MITCHELL:Right.

MR. MURPHY:You give me that in any Democratic seat, I can grab it for the
Republicans
.

MR. GREGORY:Well, but can I ask a...

MR. MURPHY:

REP. VAN HOLLEN:He's not now, but
Davis
used to be a Democratic candidate. So there's the third
party
candidate, but the fact is that what has really galvanized this race has been, has been the
Medicare
issue and the plan to end the
Medicare
guarantee. There's no dispute about that.

MR. MURPHY:Jobs are what have galvanized this race.

MR. GREGORY:Well, and can I make a point, though, about that? Well, thank you,
Mike
, because...

MR. MURPHY:Which is the real issue anyway, you know, we all talk about.

MR. GREGORY:...this is what I think is the difficulty for
Republicans
. You heard
Paul Ryan
say basically, you know, "You're with me or against me on
Medicare
." That's a
litmus test
issue for Republican candidates, but it hurts them if they want to say, "Hey, we're the
party
that's going to get you back to work."

MR. SORKIN:Right. No, that's the issue. And it's ultimately going to be about the math. It's going to be about what happens to the
oil prices
, and it's going to be about what happens to employment.
And I
truly believe that we're going to vote with our wallet when it actually comes down to it. And so the big question is, where are we in, let's say, six to 12 months from now when we actually have to...

MR. MURPHY:Yeah. No, I concur.

MR. SORKIN:When the rubber hits the road. And that's the issue,
full stop
.

MR. MURPHY:I think it will be. It's a spending
debate
in
Washington
because that's the big long-term
problem
. It's a jobs
election
. And that's the president's
problem
. He's perceived by six out of 10 Americans as doing a lousy job on the
economy
. If the
Republicans
can get their focus on maybe not an
entitlement
war, but that, I think they can beat the president. If not, they may...

MR. ROBINSON:But the question is, though, which
party
, which candidate can develop a message on jobs that connects with voters? I would argue that the president hasn't really done that. I would argue that the
Republicans
have not done that.

MR. GREGORY:But the
Democrats
...

MR. ROBINSON:If the
Republicans
don't, I think the president....

MR. GREGORY:Well, let me ask you, let me ask you about this.

MR. SORKIN:It's about trying to tell a jobs story...

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

MR. SORKIN:...and the
Republicans
are trying to tell a
deficit
story. Right? How do we reduce -- that's the distinction.

MR. GREGORY:Well, let me ask then about another, another candidate,
Jon Huntsman
. He is, of
course
, the returning ambassador for the
Obama
administration in
China
. He was in
New Hampshire
this past week. He's positioning himself for a run. He's in a gun store in
New Hampshire
. He was a former governor of
Utah
, so he's trying to shore up those credentials. But what's interesting about him is that he's positioning himself not as a gun-toting conservative candidate, but as a more pragmatic candidate.
Andrew Mitchell
, is that going to fly in this
Republican party
?

MS. MITCHELL:It's, it's very much a big question,
open question
, as to whether
Jon Huntsman
can be viable in this
party
. Is he the place that the
Bush family
now goes having lost
Mitch Daniels
as a
running horse
?

MR. GREGORY:Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL:He's opened a
campaign
headquarters or he will open his
campaign
headquarters in
Orlando
. Does that, does that raise questions about his authenticity? Is he
running away
from his
Mormon
faith as the governor of
Utah
, opening the -- it seems almost too cute, too obvious to open in
Florida
, your
campaign
headquarters, when you could choose any place in the
country
.

MR. GREGORY:Yeah. Do
Democrats
think he's formidable? Do you
worry
about him?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:I, I don't really
worry
a lot about Huntsman. I mean, we're obviously just watching this Republican
field
play out, the thinning of the
field
. It would be great to have Don
Trump
back. But let me say this.

MR. GREGORY:Right. But you...

MR. SORKIN:Let me just ask, but who do you
worry
about?

MR. GREGORY:Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL:Who do you
worry
about, yeah?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:What's that?

MR. GREGORY:Who do you
worry
about?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Right now...

MR. MURPHY:Obama
.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:No, right now, look, the president -- no we don't because, as we were saying, at least the president, I mean, all kidding aside, the president has been focused on jobs. And as part of this
deficitdebate
...

MS. MITCHELL:That hasn't translated yet.

REP. VAN HOLLEN:...he has said his
number
one priority is to make sure that we continue to be able to compete with our major overseas competitors, with
China and India
and all the others.

MR. GREGORY:But do you
worry
, Congressman, that if unemployment doesn't get below 8.2, 8 percent, that he can't win?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:I don't
worry
that he can't win, but clearly, you know, the -- this
election
will be about the
economyat the end of the day
. But it's also going to be about people's vision for the
economy
and where they want to go. And again, so far we've seen nothing from the
Republicans
as to how they would do anything better than the present.

MR. MURPHY:Yes.

MR. GREGORY:Mike
, can I just talk about
Iowa
...

MR. MURPHY:Sure.

MR. GREGORY:...which is something you were thinking about this week. You wrote about it in
Time magazine
-- I'll put what you said up on the screen -- in
terms
of
Iowa
strategy and how it's sort of influencing how the
Republicans
are starting to run and position themselves in the state. Do we have that ready? Can we put that up? It is that "the caucuses weed out about half of
Iowa
's
GOP
-primary voters." You wrote, "[I]t attracts the intense and increasingly ideological voters who like their
political
meat served raw. And since the caucus vote is splintered among several candidates, as few as 40,000 votes are often enough to win. No wonder
Michele Bachmann
is out buying snowshoes." Your point being,
Iowa
should not have as much juice as it has, but since it has it...

MR. MURPHY:Right.

MR. GREGORY:...does
Michele Bachmann
, does
Sarah Palin
have more room to run there and make a real dent?

MR. MURPHY:Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm very fond of
Iowa
, I have many friends there. But I think the caucus has
become
a bit of a
Harold Hill
type thing, all its own now, where the Iowans are selling the band instruments with this big, expensive process. That's why I wrote about it. I do think, look, three million people live in
Iowa
, and if you get 40,000 of them together, you can win the caucus and get on a rocket sled in
national
politics. If I had to bet now, I'd bet
Michele Bachmann
in, in a
field
that's shrinking a little, but it'll have enough candidates, can win around a third of the vote, maybe a little less. That could help Huntsman as the kind of anti-
Bachmann
, the more moderate candidate in much more moderate
New Hampshire
, then the rest of the primaries
become
tougher for Huntsman. So I think
Iowa
almost becomes more of a disruptive factor now, that small turn out caucus for us...

MR. GREGORY:Andrea
, I want to ask you, you know,
Mitt Romney
in many ways had a good week. At the beginning of the week, he announced a huge haul in fundraising, over $10 million, which made it very
clear
that this is a guy who can keep on standing and still take a lot of punches over the long haul. And going back to
Gingrich
, on this question of the individual mandate, which is part, of
course
, of the president's healthcare plan, this was the exchange that I had with
Gingrich
over the individual mandate, which is something he supported back in the '90s. This is what he said.

REP. GINGRICH:Well, I
agree
that all of us have a responsibility to pay -- help pay for
health care
. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most
Libertarians
relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have
health insurance
or you post a bond, or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable.

MR. GREGORY:But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH:It's a variation on it.

MR. GREGORY:He's given some cover here and this is the most, you know, the biggest issue here for
Republicans
. That got less attention.

MR. MURPHY:Sure.

MR. GREGORY:But he said he's not going to go after
Romney
on
health care
.

MS. MITCHELL:If
Romney
can deal with the healthcare issue, and he hasn't yet, then
Romney
does
become
the last man standing and
Mitch Daniels
being out of it,
Huckabee
being out, of
course
, opens up that whole space for a
family values
,
social conservative
, which is why
Michele Bachmann
looks so good for
Iowa
right now. But
Romney
then could be the alternative. If Huntsman proves what a lot of candidates have proved in the past, that when -- if you're new to politics, it's not that easy to
become
the
national
candidate on -- with all the exposure and intensity of that stage.

MR. GREGORY:Gene
, point?

MR. ROBINSON:I just want to point out that this is real confusion and chaos in the Republican
field
. However, when
push comes to shove
, as
Mike
knows, the
Republican party
's going to have a candidate.

MR. MURPHY:Yeah.

MR. ROBINSON:That candidate is going to have a ton of money, and unless there's a third
party
candidate, the Republican candidate is pretty much guaranteed of a floor of say 45 percent of the, of the
popular vote
.

MR. GREGORY:And the candidate...

MR. ROBINSON:So...

MR. GREGORY:That candidate, that candidate on the right could be
Herman Cain
, who announced in
Atlanta
yesterday. Watch this.

MR. HERMAN CAIN:Just to be
clear
, let me say it again, I'm running for president of the
United States
, and I'm not running for second.

MR. GREGORY:Mike Murphy
, he had a big crowed out in
Atlanta
yesterday.

MR. MURPHY:Yeah, I'll take a bet about whether or not he gets nominated.

MR. MURPHY:I don't think he has a resume. But he could be the interesting other candidate. And the thing about
Romney
is, everybody in
Washington
-- he's a good friend of mine. I did his governor's race, but I try to be impartial about this. He is -- there's not a lot of excitement. He's kind of like
Mondale
. But we got to remember that the tough slogger often is the one who gets nominated, and there's no doubt the nomination in this
economy
is
worth
having. So there will be some interest in
Christie
now, but ultimately,
Romney's
still the front-runner.

MR. GREGORY:All right. I'm going to take another break here. We're going to come back with our final segment, our
Trends
and
Takeaways
, what made news here, what to look for next week, and this rupture between the administration and, and
Israel
on a
big day
for the president speaking to the pro-
Israel lobby
. All of that right after this break.

MR. GREGORY:We're back in our final minutes here, our
Trends
and
Takeaways
segment, what made news, this hour. My interview with
Paul Ryan
has a lot of people talking in the digital space, online. He said that he was disappointed that the
big story
here this morning,
Mitch Daniels
, governor of
Indiana
, not running for president, that Chairman
Ryan
was disappointed about that and even fielded some questions about his own future. Watch.

REP. RYAN:I'm not running for president. You never know what opportunities present themselves way down the road. I'm not talking about right now.
And I
want to focus on fixing the fiscal
problems
of this
country
.

MR. GREGORY:Didn't
close the door
here.
Mike Murphy
, if we go to our
TweetDeck
board here in the studio, a lot of people are talking about this online, including my colleague
Steve

Hayes from The Weekly Standard, who tweets this:"
Mitch Daniels
out. Expect the pressure on
Paul Ryan
and Governor
Christie
to increase dramatically." Quickly, you, you
agree
with that?

MR. MURPHY:Well, the
Paul Ryan
thing is five guys at
The Weekly Standard
tweeting like mad right now. I take
Ryan
at his word, with all due respect to my friends there. I think there will be a moment for
Christie
, if he
wants
it.
Easier said than done
, and you peak the day you announce in this kind of politics, but...

MR. GREGORY:Well, and certainly a lot of discussion, as you imagine, on
Twitter
about who fills that space, kind of mirroring the conversation that we've been having here. This from geekgirldiva, "At this point,
Paul Ryan
may have to toss his hat into the ring." So I say, a lot of that conversation going on. At the same time, what's happening today, we want to take you live here in
Washington
,
D.C.
, to the scene of
AIPAC
. This is the pro-
Israel lobby
, very powerful in the
United States
. The president will be speaking here,
Andrea Mitchell
, and this is on the heels of a rupture with
Israel
. The president said this week that any
peace plan
, a
Palestinian state
would have to go back to the borders of prior to the
1967
war. This was significant.

MS. MITCHELL:He did have language that said there would be land swaps to protect
Israel
's security, but it was taken as a red flag by
Netanyahu
. And what happened then was that even if this was implicit in things that previous presidents had said,
Netanyahu
seized on it. Even before he got on the plane, he criticized the president, and in such a fashion! He lectured him in the
Oval Office
. And if you look at that picture that you have up there right now, it was a stone- faced
Barack Obama
and
Netanyahu
basically treating him like a school boy. People even who work for
Netanyahu
, some of his Israeli officials, told him later that he went too far. That it was, it was really rude and that there would be blowback to this.

MR. GREGORY:And, Congressman, you know this well, having run a lot of campaigns, and for the
party
, particularly with a big
Jewish
vote in
Florida
. You have Governor
Romney
, Governor
Pawlenty
and others saying, essentially, that the president threw
Israel
under the bus. Is there going to be blowback here politically?

REP. VAN HOLLEN:Well, first of all, I think that the -- this will, this will blow over pretty quickly. I think that they'll be a quick reconciliation on this point.
Number
two, I think the
Republicans
make a very serious mistake if they decide to politicize this issue. The support for
Israel
in the
United States
has always been a bipartisan issue, and I don't think it serves anybody's interests, not the
United States'
interest, nor the interests of
Israel
, to have this
become
a big partisan issue. And let's remember, the president in his speech emphasized the fact that the
United States
has an unshakeable commitment to the security of
Israel
. He made it
clear
he does not expect the Israelis to deal with a
coalition government
with
Hamas
, so long as they refuse to renounce violence and refuse to accept the right of
Israel
. And finally, he threw cold water on the Palestinian idea of going to the
United Nations
. So there was a lot in here for...

MS. MITCHELL:But that's not what
Netanyahu
...

MR. GREGORY:Ten, ten seconds.
Mike Murphy
, does the president get a bad reception at this very important conference here in
Washington
?

MR. MURPHY:I think he'll be in full retreat, but I'll bet we pick up 75,000 votes in
Florida
, which could be a lot.

MR. GREGORY:Which you think is, will be significant.

MR. MURPHY:It was a clumsy move by the president. Just those sentences. The rest of the speech was great.

MR. GREGORY:All right. We're going to have to leave it there. This conversation continues. Thanks to all of you very much. You can hear more from
Andrew Ross Sorkin
, by the way, in our
Take Two Web
extra today. He is going to discuss his best-selling book on the
2008financial crisis
"Too Big to
Fail
." Now it's an
HBO
movie. It's debuting tomorrow. That's our
Take Two Web
extra. It's up on our website this afternoon, mtp.msnbc.com. That is all for today. We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's
MEET THE PRESS
.

FMR. REP. NEWT GINGRICH (R-GA): I don't think right wing social engineering is any more desirable than left wing social engineering.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Newt Gingrich set off a huge battle on the right over Medicare, the debt, and the GOP's 2012 strategy. The target of that criticism, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, whose plan to reform Medicare has made him the most talked about figure in Republican politics. And he is here this morning exclusively to respond to the controversy Gingrich created.

Then, our political roundtable weighs in on all the fallout, Gingrich's rough start and changing story.

(Videotape)

REP. GINGRICH: Those words were inaccurate and unfortunate, and I'm prepared to stand up and--when I make a mistake, and I'm going to on occasion, I want to stand up and share with the American people that was a mistake.

MR. GREGORY: How are the Democrats trying to take advantage, and what does it all mean for the rest of the GOP contenders who are making fresh moves in the campaign? Mitch Daniels is now out, along with Trump earlier this week. Pawlenty is about to get in. And Huntsman in New Hampshire. Plus, the president's big Mideast speech and the rupture with Israel. With us: ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland; Republican strategist and columnist for Time magazine Mike Murphy; chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, Andrea Mitchell; columnist for The Washington Post Eugene Robinson; and author of the book "Too Big to Fail," now an HBO movie, The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Announcer: From NBC News in Washington, MEET THE PRESS with David Gregory.

MR. DAVID GREGORY: Breaking news in the 2012 race for the White House. Mitch Daniels will not run for president. The Indiana governor, who many thought would arrive on a white horse to buck up the GOP field, will not join the fray after all, announcing in a surprise statement overnight that family concerns made the difference. From the statement, he writes about his wife Cheri and his four daughters the following: "What could have been a complicated decision was in the end very simple: on matters affecting us all, our family constitution gives a veto to the women's caucus, and there is no override provision. Simply put, I find myself caught between two duties. I love my country; I love my family more." And with that, the field narrows.

I want to begin here this morning, and I'm joined by the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan. Chairman, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI): Hey, good morning, David. Nice to be with you.

MR. GREGORY: I want to get your, your reaction to the Daniels news because he is, in many ways, a kindred spirit on a lot of these fiscal issues, fiscal discipline. He won't be a part of that 2012 conversation as a candidate. A big blow to the party, do you think?

REP. RYAN: Well, he called me last night and gave me the news about this, so quite frankly, yes, I am disappointed. I think his candidacy would have been a great addition to this race, and I think it's unfortunate that he's not going to run.

MR. GREGORY: What about your own plans? There's a move afoot this morning, one of the big trending stories is whether you might actually join the race with a fiscal discipline message for 2012. Will it happen?

REP. RYAN: Well, look, I've been very clear about this. I'm not running for president. I feel, because we are in a big budget debate, I'm in a great position as chairman of the House Budget Committee to really weigh in on this debate. And I feel at the moment we are in, I want to stay focused on where we are right now, and that is getting our fiscal house in order.

MR. GREGORY: So under no circumstances would you run or be on the ticket as a number two?

REP. RYAN: Look, I, I'm not going to get into all those hypotheticals. I'm not running for president, I'm not planning on running for president. If you're running for president, you've got to do a lot of things to line up a candidacy. I've not done any of those things. It's not my plan. My plan is to be a good chairman of the House Budget Committee and fight for the fiscal sanity of this nation.

MR. GREGORY: Understood. There's a little bit of door opening there, though, the door's a bit ajar. And you know how, you know how this works.

REP. RYAN: It's not door opening, it's just--I do know how this works, and I'm not going to get into all these hypotheticals in the future. My point is I'm not running for president. You never know what opportunities present themselves way down the road. I'm not talking about right now. And I want to focus on fixing the fiscal problems of this country. And I really believe, David, where I am as chairman of the House Budget Committee puts me in a great position to, to be a great contributor to this debate.

MR. GREGORY: OK. Stay where you are, Chairman, please. The other big political story this week, of course, had to do with Newt Gingrich. He's in Iowa this weekend. He says his presidential campaign is alive and well despite a very tough week that began with his criticism of my guest, Paul Ryan, whose plan to reform Medicare is now the hot topic in Washington and on the campaign trail. We're going to continue our interview with Chairman Ryan in just a moment, but first some of the background.

(BEGIN TAPED SEGMENT)

Just days after announcing his White House run, Gingrich made his 35th appearance on this program and shocked many by upending a centerpiece of the conservative 2012 playbook by calling Ryan's Medicare plan "right wing social engineering."

(Videotape, last Sunday)

REP. GINGRICH: So there are things you can do to improve Medicare...

MR. GREGORY: But not what Paul Ryan is suggesting, which is completely changing Medicare.

REP. GINGRICH: I, I think that, I think, I think that that is too big a jump.

REP. GINGRICH: I made a mistake, and I called Paul Ryan today, who's a very close, personal friend, and I said that.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: But other conservatives had already moved in.

(Videotape, Wednesday)

FMR. GOV. SARAH PALIN (R-AK): And it sounded pretty clear to me that Newt Gingrich's position, because he articulated this, was that Paul Ryan's plan would be social engineering, and he didn't like it.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: By Thursday, Gingrich moved on to denial.

(Videotape, Thursday)

REP. GINGRICH: It was not a reference to Paul Ryan. There was no reference to Paul Ryan in that answer.

MR. GREGORY: Missteps that gave political commentators and comedians alike material all week long.

(Videotape)

REP. GINGRICH: So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, and--because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate.

MR. JON STEWART: You know, I, I've always found the hallmark of an honest conversation is one that begins with, "If you quote me directly, utilizing videotape of my comments in context, you're lying."

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: The bigger issue beyond Gingrich's campaign is the sensitivity he exposed among Republicans to Ryan's budget plan, including Medicare. Just how far will and should the GOP go to tackle the debt in this election season?

(END TAPED SEGMENT)

And I'm back with Chairman Paul Ryan. How did you respond to all of this?

REP. RYAN: Well, first of all, his quote was deeply inaccurate. It was a gross mischaracterization of the House Republican budget plan. Newt's acknowledged that, he's retracted it. And let's be clear what we're proposing here. This is as sensible and gradual as it gets. We're saying no changes for Medicare for people above the age of 55. And in order to keep the promise to current seniors who've already retired and organized their lives around this program, you have to reform it for the next generation. And the way in which we propose reforming for the next generation, it's in keeping with the Bill Clinton bipartisan commission that--to reform Medicare, it's an idea that's been around for a long time called premium support: guaranteed coverage options for Medicare where the government subsidizes the poor and the sick a whole lot more than the wealthy, and people get to choose. If I could put it in a nutshell, we're saying don't affect current seniors, give future seniors the ability to deny business to inefficient providers. As a contrary to that, the president's plan is to give the government the power to deny care to seniors by empowering a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats...

REP. RYAN: ...to put price controls and rationing in place for current seniors. So I would argue that the opposite is true. We're being sensible, we're being rational, and we're saving this program. And you cannot deal with this debt crisis, David, unless you're serious about entitlement reform. And, unfortunately, I think we're going to have "mediscare" all over again, and that's unfortunate for the country.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Well, we're going to, we're going to get to that, Congressman. Was this demagoguery on the part of Newt Gingrich? That's what you warned happens on both sides when you were here in April on the approach to big problems.

REP. RYAN: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: This was demagoguery on the part of Newt Gingrich.

REP. RYAN: No, I think that, that quote is deeply inaccurate. It's a gross mischaracterization. And again, Newt has already said that it was wrong, he was wrong to say it, and he's, he's basically retracted the statement. And he has apologized to me personally for that.

MR. GREGORY: Well, but, but, here's the issue.

REP. RYAN: It's not about me personally, this is about the House Republican budget.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Right, it--I don't think anybody thinks it's about you personally. The Wall Street Journal editorialized on Tuesday the following, I'll put it up on the screen: "Mr. Gingrich chose to throw his former allies in the GOP House not so much under the bus as off the Grand Canyon rim. ...

"Our guess is that a politician as experienced as Mr. Gingrich knew exactly what he was doing and that as he runs for president, he wants to appear to be more moderate than he has sounded over the last, oh, 20 years, by suddenly triangulating against the GOP House he once led." The implication there, Mr. Chairman, is that he did know what he was doing because what he said out loud is what a lot of Republicans I've spoken to say privately, and they're scared to death about the politics of what you're proposing. They think it's just handing a huge issue to the Democrats.

REP. RYAN: Look, of course people are scared of entitlement reform because every time you put entitlement reform out there, the other party uses it as a political weapon against you. Look, both parties have done this to each other. Here's the problem, David. If we don't get serious about these issues, if we don't get serious about the drivers of our debt, we're going to have a debt crisis. And the irony of this is all if we don't fix these programs, people who rely on these benefits are going to get cut the first, they're going to be hurt the worst under a debt crisis. We're saying, if we fix this now, we can keep the current promise to current seniors and people 10 years away from retiring. If we allow politics to get the best of us...

REP. RYAN: ...and if we allow the demagoguery to sink in and do nothing, then we will have a debt crisis. Then current seniors will get hurt. So who's being rational and responsible here? I think we want to get above all of this. Look, here in Wisconsin, people are ready for answers. They want leadership. The Senate Democrats haven't even proposed or passed a budget for 753 days. So we House Republicans have put out a plan to fix this problem, save Medicare, and, in fact, pay off the debt over time.

MR. GREGORY: All right, but, but Chairman...

REP. RYAN: We have seen nothing of the like from the president and the Senate Democrats.

MR. GREGORY: OK. But here's the problem. According to our polling, nearly eight in 10 Americans do not want to cut spending for Medicare, even in the name of cutting the debt. You, I assume, are not doing all of this as an intellectual exercise. You would actually like to get reform accomplished. There's the question of how much damage Newt Gingrich has done, former speaker of the House, presidential candidate. He was in Iowa and he was confronted by a voter, and I want to play a portion of that and get your response to it.

(Videotape, Tuesday)

RUSSEL FUHRMAN: What you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable.

MR. NEWT GINGRICH: I didn't do anything to Paul Ryan.

RUSSEL FUHRMAN: Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the, in the House.

MR. GREGORY: No. How much damage has Newt Gingrich done to your effort to reform Medicare?

REP. RYAN: Oh, Newt. Excuse me. I didn't hear you correctly.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

REP. RYAN: Look, I'm not a pundit, I'm a policy maker. I'll let you and your panel figure that out, and that's up to the voters to figure this stuff out. The point is this, we've got to get beyond this and we've got to get on to a serious conversation about what it takes to fix the fiscal problems in this country. And if we don't tackle these problems now while we have time, they're going to tackle us. And our whole point here is we need to pre-empt and avert a debt crisis, and the way we are--have proposed to do that is do it on our terms and prevent people who are currently retired and people about to retire from having severe disruptions in their lives.

REP. RYAN: ...and the people of New Hampshire can figure this stuff out.

MR. GREGORY: But--yeah, but wait a second. But that, but that really is a dodge. You are the chairman of the committee, yes. You're serious about entitlement reform, yes. You're also a politician. You say you want to do it on your terms. Law does not become law without building political consensus and you don't have that. And now you've had a major figure in the Republican Party say this was right wing social engineering. So I'm wondering how much you do feel undercut...

REP. RYAN: So...

MR. GREGORY: ...in actually getting this passed, which I assume is your goal.

REP. RYAN: First of all, if people are describing this accurately in polls, it's far more popular than the poll you've referenced. Second of all, leaders are elected to lead. I don't consult polls to tell me what my principles are or what our policies should be. Leaders change the polls. And we are leading in the House. We are not seeing this kind of leadership from the president of the United States. The Senate Democrats haven't even proposed or passed a budget for 753 days, and we have a budget crisis. So yes, we are going to lead, and we are going to try to move these polls and change these polls because that's what the country wants. I, I just did 19 town hall meetings, David, in, in the district that I work for that went for Obama, Dukakis, Clinton and Gore. People are hungry for solutions, and I really fundamentally believe that the people are way ahead of the political class. And I think they're going to reward the leader who steps up to the plate and actually fixes these problems, no matter how much demagoguery, no matter how much distortion, no matter how much political parties try to scare seniors in the next election. I just don't think they're going to buy it this year, and they're hungry for leaders to fix this problem before it gets out of our control.

MR. GREGORY: Well, let me, let me follow up on that point. The president's communication adviser, Dan Pfieffer, put this on his Twitter feed this week. He wrote, "Biggest takeaway from the Gingrich flap, ending Medicare as we know it is the new GOP litmus test." You'd expect that from Democrats, of course, and you'll hear a lot more of it. But also from the right, Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe in The Wall Street Journal from FreedomWorks, behind the tea party movement, they write this, "Medicare reform has risen to the top of the national agenda and will be the defining issue of next year's elections. Any serious GOP presidential candidate must be absolutely clear on this issue. Kicking the can down the road is no longer an option. A candidate who is timid on entitlement reforms is not qualified to be president." Is that your view?

REP. RYAN: Yes, it is my view. I, I agree with that. And I do believe--look, you cannot ever fully balance the budget and pay off the debt unless you address the drivers of our debt, our healthcare entitlements, our entitlements. And so we need a leader who's willing to talk about these things and actually do these things. We don't have that leader in the White House right now. We don't have these leaders running the Senate right now. And, yes, I agree with Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe in that op-ed, which is if you want a real leader to fix America's problems, you've got to deal with these entitlement issues before they get out of our control. And so, yeah, I agree with that sentiment.

MR. GREGORY: Then why don't you see more Republicans who want to be the country's leader, standing up and saying, "I am for the Ryan plan, full stop, including Medicare reforms." Even Michele Bachmann has said there's an asterisk next to her support on Medicare because she has concerns that has been backed up by Congressional analysis suggesting that costs for seniors would go up under your plan, what would be--you call premium support, others call vouchers, giving them money to buy insurance in the private marketplace.

REP. RYAN: Well, look, first of all, I have no problems with somebody who's offering alternative solutions to fix this problem. I have problems with people who aren't offering any solutions, who are just playing politics. You know, as far as the costs are concerned, here's what we propose. If you're under 55, when you become Medicare eligible, you get to pick among guaranteed coverage options provided by and regulated by Medicare. We don't subsidize the wealthy nearly as much as middle income, and we subsidize the poor and the sick a whole lot more than everybody else. We think that's a smart way to go. Choice in competition, giving the senior the power to deny business to inefficient providers. The alternative to this, David, is a rationing scheme, are the 15 bureaucrats the president's going to appoint next year on his panel to ration Medicare spending. We don't think we should give the government the power to ration spending to seniors. We want to give future seniors the ability to make choices. And we want to subsidize people who are middle income and lower income and sick more than we subsidize the wealthy. And doing it this way, according to the CBO and the trustees, saves Medicare not only for the current generation with no disruptions, but for the next generation. It helps us pay off our national debt. These are the kinds of issues we've got to tackle if we're going to avert a debt crisis.

MR. GREGORY: Well, are you willing to negotiate on this?

REP. RYAN: And if you want to be a serious leader, you've got to do this.

REP. RYAN: Of course, we would. I mean, this is the legislative process. But let me be clear, we're the only ones who put out a plan to fix this problem. We have nothing, nothing from the president or from the Senate Democrats that come anywhere close to averting a debt crisis and fixing our problem. House Republicans put out a plan that cut $6.2 trillion over the next 10 years to get this economy growing, to save our safety net, to guarantee health and retirement security, and to pay off our debt. We're offering details. We have no partners on the other side of the aisle offering anything but misleading scare tactics.

MR. GREGORY: All right. Before you go, what about the debt ceiling negotiations? Do you think they'll be a deal, or will this go down to the wire?

REP. RYAN: Well, first of all, I think there will be a deal, and it'll probably take a while. Look, we have till August. It's May right now. This is going to take time. Our position's really simple. For every dollar the president wants to raise the debt limit, we're saying let's

cut more than a dollar's worth of spending. He's asked for a $2 trillion increase in the debt limit, we've laid out $6.2 trillion in spending cuts. So we can show the president plenty of ways and areas to cut more than a dollar's worth of spending and it's very important for the credit markets, for our economy to show that we're going to get this situation under control, that we're going to get the debt stabilized and get spending under control, as we deal with this debt limit. Nobody wants default to happen, but at the same time, we don't want to rubber stamp just the debt limit increase that shows we're not getting our situation under control.

MR. GREGORY: All right. Chairman Ryan, I apologize for that satellite delay. Sometimes that gets in the way. Thank you very much for dealing with that, and thank you for being on.

MR. GREGORY: And coming up, battleground 2012, the changing GOP field. What the overnight news that Mitch Daniels will not run means for the rest of the contenders. Plus, more on the Gingrich fallout. Did he upend the Republicans' 2012 campaign strategy, and can his candidacy survive such an early blow? Plus, rising tensions in the Middle East as President Obama delivers a big speech on U.S. policy in the region. We'll talk about the politics of it all with our roundtable. Joining us, Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, and The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: Coming up, what does Daniels' decision not to run mean for the rest of the GOP field? Plus, analysis of Gingrich's rocky week, and the riff between the U.S. and Israel after the president's big Middle East speech on Friday, and reaction to Ryan's interview. Our roundtable, they're all here, ready to go and weigh in--Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Mike Murphy, Gene Robinson, Andrea Mitchell and Andrew Ross Sorkin--right after this brief commercial break.

(Announcements)

MR. DAVID GREGORY: We're back, joined now by our roundtable: Republican strategist and columnist for Time magazine, Mike Murphy in from Los Angeles; Democratic congressman and ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland; author of the new book--not the new book, best selling book, "Too Big to Fail," but it's now going to be a new HBO movie, The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin; chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, Andrea Mitchell; columnist for The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. Welcome to all of you.

Congressman, I want to start with you, fresh off this Paul Ryan interview. He's not giving ground on Medicare after patching things up with Newt Gingrich. Where does that leave negotiation on whether any kind of entitlement reform concerning Medicare can be agreed to?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Well, you're right, David, it sounds like the Republicans are doubling down on their plan to end the Medicare guarantee. You know, Newt Gingrich had it right a week ago on this show. It is a radical plan, it is right wing social engineering, and it is, for this reason, because they take away the Medicare guarantee. They say to seniors: You've got to go into the private insurance market. And the independent Congressional Budget Offices point out two things: In that market, prices keep going up; and under their plan, support for seniors under Medicare goes down. Which is why it's going to cost seniors more and more every year as this goes on.

MR. GREGORY: But he is saying that he is willing to negotiate, and he's also saying, accurately, that you Democrats don't have a plan and we have a budget crisis.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, two things there. Number one, the president has put a plan on the table. And let's remember that the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare reform bill, had some significant Medicare reform. In fact, as, as Paul indicated, in the last elections, they ran all these ads against Democrats. We ended the overpayments to the Medicare advantage plans. We made some other reforms to incentivize provision of value of care over volume of care, and there are other things that had been proposed, and the president mentioned some of those. But here's where the Republicans have not come to the table. You didn't hear one word about how we need to deal with the revenue side of the equation. Every bipartisan commission that has looked at our deficit and debt problem has said you can't do it with a one-sided, lop-sided approach, which is what the Republican plan is. You need a revenue component. These guys won't even agree to get rid of the subsidies for the big oil companies. If you're serious about the deficit, why won't you come to the table and say, when you got record gas prices, record profits, you're not going to ask the, the oil companies to chip in and get rid of their subsidies.

MR. GREGORY: Final, final point on this. The Republicans say, "Look, the prescription drug benefit under Medicare came in under budget and is very popular, and that the current path is simply unsustainable, to keep giving a guarantee to people that can't be paid for without absolutely busting the budget and increasing the deficit." Is the Democratic leadership prepared to put reformulating Medicare in some dramatic way on the table?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: What we've said about Medicare is what the president said, which is that, number one, some reforms have been made; number two, additional reforms can be made. But that's not the place you start, by going to say, you know, beneficiaries are going to take the big hit. There are other reforms you can make. Let me give you one example. When it comes to prescription drugs, you mentioned Medicare Part D. In fact, under the Medicaid program, the taxpayer gets a much better deal in terms of the price for the purchase of drugs. We've said for folks who are on Medicare and Medicaid, dual eligible, "Take the lower price, save the taxpayers some money." So there's a lot you can do. And the Republican proposal, the reason it's such bad politics is because it's terrible policy.

MR. GREGORY: All right. We're going to come back to this. I want to invite everybody now to weigh in, we'll weigh in on this. But I want to get to some of the big political news this morning, and we'll put up the headline this morning from the Indianapolis Star, Mike Murphy, Daniels decision, not running. "I love my country; I love my family more." This is a big deal. I said at the top, this is--he was seen that...

MR. MIKE MURPHY: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: ...candidate on the white horse for a lot of people.

MR. MURPHY: Old rule of politics, if you're going to run, make sure your wife is going to vote for you. And, you know, so I thought he had a great statement, and it's true. People were very excited about him as a candidate. He would have been a heavyweight in the contest. So now we're back to where we were. I think there's a little too much talk in Washington about there's not enough excitement. There may not be enough in Washington. For real voters, it hasn't even begun yet. And I think there's only one last Hamlet question, which is Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is a big Republican star, will he take another look at a late entry, which I think is possible. That would shake up the race. If not, I think you're going to have a lot of noise candidates around, but it's going to be down to Romney, Huntsman, Pawlenty, and then a kind of an entertaining candidate who won't get nominated, one of will emerge, maybe Herman Cain.

MR. GREGORY: Well, Andrea Mitchell, what about Paul Ryan? I mean, he didn't close the door completely to being on the ticket. He said, "I'm, I'm not running for president."

MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: He didn't close the door. I think that because of the Medicare--the toxicity really of what he's proposed on Medicare in terms of politics, that I think it would be very, a very big reach for him to be nominee of the Republican Party. But he ought to be considered. Certainly, I think that Mike would say for vice president, he could be in those sweepstakes. He--when he said on--to you that leaders change polls...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL: That, that's leadership that people are hungry for.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: And he did say that anybody running in 2012 basically has to be either with him or against him, that he is that, you know, in that, in that center place.

MR. GREGORY: Or show leadership, right. Gene Robinson, here's our list of who's in, who's out, who's on the fence. We've got--our cork board here is moving around a lot. So, you see who's now out.

MR. EUGENE ROBINSON: Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY: You see who's in, including as of tomorrow Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain got in over the weekend. And then that additional list of who's kind of out there but not officially in. Mitt Romney is going to be in, but he's just not official. John Huntsman and Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin. And look at the polling, as of now, just so we have some context around all of this. Romney is still at 20 percent. Palin at 12 percent. She said this week she's got fire in the belly. Gingrich at nine, and so on and so forth. Where does it stand?

MR. ROBINSON: Well, it, it's very confused. Mitt Romney, everything that's happened the last few weeks has been very good for Mitt Romney.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. ROBINSON: I mean, he, he is sort of the default option, I think, for the Republican Party. Chris Christie has made Sherman-like statements about not running this time. I think he--I, I personally think he's serious about that, and I think one reason is that he can look ahead to 2016...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. ROBINSON: ...and, and see that as a better, better chance.

MR. GREGORY: What about the message, Andrew Ross Sorkin? I mean, you cover Wall Street, you cover all things financial. A fiscal discipline message, a "We're going to get it right on the economy" message, that is still the right message for Republicans going into next year.

MR. SORKIN: I got to tell you, I got an email while the show was going on, while Ryan was just speaking, and even though the Medicare plan may be unpopular, the view by a Wall Street CEO was this guy at least is proposing something.

MR. SORKIN: I think they like the idea of leadership. They want to get behind that. I don't know if Ryan is their man. I think from a money perspective you're seeing all the money go to Romney. But I think there's a real worry that there is a lack of leadership. And, and as one CEO said to me this week, "At this point, we are only playing for the Senate." I mean, in terms of what our real opportunity is, because I don't think they have someone who has really ignited, ignited at least the business community.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah, the Senate is the hedge on the presidential race.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. MURPHY: Let me speak about Ryan for a minute to defend him, because there is a feeling in the country--and it's right, I believe, at least a perception--that a lot of people in Congress, you know, they're on the federal payroll, and they spend a lot of their time maneuvering to get re-elected. Paul Ryan, whether you like the plan or you don't like the plan, is about the bravest guy in Washington because he's taking on the entitlement monster, which is a huge threat. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, everybody agrees this spending thing is out of control. And so Ryan's got a plan that involves a lot of political pain. Whether it's fair or not, it's incredibly brave. What I'd like to see is some grown-up politics for a change. So instead of the Democrats just doing the "mediscare," let's have an equally adult, somewhat scary plan from the left, so voters can have a real comparison because they're grown-ups. Pick the harder choice rather than the hard choice vs. the demography of the--you know--and Medicare as we know it, which is a scam.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: But, but, but...

MR. GREGORY: Congressman--yeah. Yeah.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Mike, Mike, political courage on the Republican side means taking on the revenue piece. That's why you've had a couple folks get in so much--Senator Coburn raised his head on that. Grover Norquist tried to chop it off. It doesn't take a lot of courage on the Republican side to slash Medicaid by $700 billion.

MR. MURPHY: Well, you know, I'm going to agree with you on, on the revenue thing. But...

REP. VAN HOLLEN: It doesn't--but--here are these guys that they won't even agree to say to the oil companies, "Look, you've got to get...

REP. VAN HOLLEN: The, the, the, the co-chairs of Simpson-Bowles, Simpson and Bowles, said that the Republican plan was not balanced. And they described the president's proposal the other day as more balanced and comprehensive.

MR. GREGORY: Well, let, let me just pull out--I want to pull out on

this.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: So let's be real here.

MR. GREGORY: Congressman, I want to pull out on this because the larger issue here is what will be rewarded? Will it be leadership on seeking to solve the most intractable problems, or will too much pain be too painful? You said Newt Gingrich had it right. There are certainly those on the Democratic side who were listening, the, the professionals. And the group that's Priorities USA Action, formed by somebody--deputy press secretary Bill Burton, now is doing an ad in South Carolina against Mitt Romney, putting the Gingrich flap at the center of it. Let's play that out.

(Videotape of political ad)

Ad Announcer: Newt Gingrich says the Republican plan that would essentially end Medicare is too radical. Governor Haley thinks the plan is courageous and Gingrich shouldn't be cutting conservatives off at the knees. Mitt Romney says he's on the same page as Paul Ryan, who wrote the plan to essentially end Medicare. But with Mitt Romney, you have to wonder, which page is he on today? Priorities USA Action is responsible for the content of this advertisement.

MS. MITCHELL: The debate is going exactly to that point, and the--both sides trying to demonize the other. And what you're saying and what Mike Murphy is saying is that people want leadership.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. MITCHELL: People want someone to show some guts here. Paul Ryan has shown considerable guts. But you're, you're, you're correct that nobody on the Republican side is showing any courage on the tax front. And unless taxes are part of the mix, every grown-up knows that it, it can't reach a solution.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Andrew:

MR. SORKIN: But I'm noticing, you know, Ryan opened the window today to actually come to middle. He wants another proposal. He wants a proposal from the Democrats. And I think they're--if they can actually--I think there's an opportunity to get there. So I think you give Ryan credit for at least bringing something to the table, and then when do the Democrats come and what do they come with?

MR. GREGORY: Let me get Gene in here. Go ahead, Gene. Yeah.

MR. ROBINSON: Just, just point out two things. Number one, the Republicans will not talk about tax increases. Democrats talk about a lot of budget cuts. They--you know, the question for Democrats is how, how deeply do you cut the budget? So, so--and, and the second thing is on Medicare, people don't want it to be a voucher program. They don't want the kind of change Paul Ryan wants. So you can call that leadership, but if nobody wants to follow, it's not leadership. It's not what people want.

MR. MURPHY: The Democrats talk about goals for budget cutting. They politically don't want to talk about actual budget cuts because they don't want their voodoo to be done to them. So you can argue, I think correctly, that the Republicans are, are very--you know, they're not ready to take heat on taxes. But the Democrats aren't ready to take heat on any kind of broad-based tax or on spending cuts for real.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, actually, that's not true, Mike. You know that. A broad-based tax is exactly what the president and the Democrats proposed. We've said let's go back to the same rates that were in place during the Clinton administration for the folks at the very top. That's a broad...

REP. VAN HOLLEN: And that's a big chunk of the money. Now, look, the bipartisan groups have said you need balance. If you want to, if you want to have--come to the table, we have a forum. Vice president's leading some talks. The Republicans have said that they're not going to deal with revenue as part of that. Democrats have said we're prepared to deal with the cuts, we're prepared to make cuts.

MR. SORKIN: It's--the Dems go one way and the Republicans go the other way, and nobody goes halfway.

MR. MURPHY: Right.

MR. GREGORY: Let me, let me get in, let me get in here for a second. Let me get in here for a second. I'm going to go to a break in just a minute, I want to ask one substantive question. And that is, will the idea of caps on spending survive to get us through this debt ceiling issue and then perhaps an agreement on the budget?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: No. What, what the president's proposed is a cap on the deficit and debt. That's what we all are interested in. That's what we need to address is the deficit.

MR. GREGORY: But the Republicans say, no, you got to cap discretionary spending, and then the appropriators can work.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: We, we say, again, it's the question of balance. We think we want to reduce the deficit. That would involve spending cuts, it involves the revenue piece. By saying spending, what you're saying is you want to whack Medicare and Medicaid only, you only want to deal with the spending side. Again, the bipartisan groups that have looked at this, every one of them have said any credible plan requires both.

MR. GREGORY: All right, that...

REP. VAN HOLLEN: That's what we're saying.

MR. GREGORY: All right, so I can't promise that the debate won't continue during the commercial, but we're going to take one. And when we come back, I want to talk more about the politics, specifically the fallout for Newt Gingrich on this very rough week that, as we pointed out, started with his comments on this program last week. More with this roundtable right after this.

MR. GREGORY: We are back with more from our roundtable. And when I say we are back, this weekend that's no small thing because there's a lot of talk about the end of the world. And so far, so good on that. So let's go back to politics and here was the cartoon out of Missouri--Columbia, Missouri, from John Darkow, of Newt Gingrich shooting himself in the foot right after he announced, and that's the Medicare statement that is around the foot that he's shooting. Mike Murphy, how much damage has Newt Gingrich done to himself?

MR. MURPHY: Well, Newt's a lot of things, but very few people in practical politics see him as a dream candidate. He's just never been a real vote-getter. And that said, he's a powerful, intellectual force. He's had a very bad week. I have to kind of step away, though, because the maneuvers of Newt's campaign is kind of like closely observing the maneuvers of the Belgian Navy. It's interesting, but it may not be that important. I don't think he was ever going to be a candidate who would get nominated. So the question is, when will the focus go to the guys who actually can get nominated? Newt could be a catalyst in all of this. He'll be a factor, but less of a factor, I think, than even people like me who didn't think he would be that powerful a week ago.

MR. GREGORY: And Gene Robinson, you wrote this in your column in The Washington Post on Thursday, "Newt Gingrich's meltdown on the launch pad. Prominent Republicans immediately grabbed their pitchforks, lit their torches and formed an angry mob. From opinion surveys and town-hall meetings, it was already clear that the Ryan plan to fundamentally alter the Medicare program is deeply unpopular - and that ultimately it is likely to hurt the party at the polls. Now one of the best-known figures in the party, a candidate for the presidential nomination, was breaking ranks." You may be left of center, but the truth is my own reporting among Republicans is that that is spot on, that they are scared to death of the politics of this thing.

MR. ROBINSON: Absolutely. They heard it at, at town hall meetings, they, they look at the polls. I mean, this is, this is really tough. This is an unpopular stance that Paul Ryan has led them to. It may be brave, but it's not popular. And so Newt Gingrich comes out and slams it. I, I think sensibly in terms of his own narrow political interests, perhaps. Or he, he could see it that way. But his campaign, I think, I mean, it's toast at this point. And I agree with Mike that maybe it wasn't going to go anywhere anyway.

MR. GREGORY: And Andrea Mitchell, he hasn't stopped talking. He's still talking this morning. He told Rush Limbaugh, as we indicated, he wasn't even speaking about Paul Ryan, which, I mean, is just, on its face, absurd.

MS. MITCHELL: He is twisting himself in the wind over this because he keeps changing the story and trying to create a new story and the importance of the politics that Gene was just pointing out, just look at the special election in New York. This is Jack Kemp's old seat, the 26th. And the Medicare issue has become, you know...

MR. ROBINSON: Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL: ...a pivotal issue that should, should be an automatic Republican seat and now is not automatic.

MR. MURPHY: You give me that in any Democratic seat, I can grab it for the Republicans.

MR. GREGORY: Well, but can I ask a...

MR. MURPHY: (Unintelligible)

REP. VAN HOLLEN: He's not now, but Davis used to be a Democratic candidate. So there's the third party candidate, but the fact is that what has really galvanized this race has been, has been the Medicare issue and the plan to end the Medicare guarantee. There's no dispute about that.

MR. MURPHY: Jobs are what have galvanized this race.

MR. GREGORY: Well, and can I make a point, though, about that? Well, thank you, Mike, because...

MR. MURPHY: Which is the real issue anyway, you know, we all talk about.

MR. GREGORY: ...this is what I think is the difficulty for Republicans. You heard Paul Ryan say basically, you know, "You're with me or against me on Medicare." That's a litmus test issue for Republican candidates, but it hurts them if they want to say, "Hey, we're the party that's going to get you back to work."

MR. SORKIN: Right. No, that's the issue. And it's ultimately going to be about the math. It's going to be about what happens to the oil prices, and it's going to be about what happens to employment. And I truly believe that we're going to vote with our wallet when it actually comes down to it. And so the big question is, where are we in, let's say, six to 12 months from now when we actually have to...

MR. SORKIN: When the rubber hits the road. And that's the issue, full stop.

MR. MURPHY: I think it will be. It's a spending debate in Washington because that's the big long-term problem. It's a jobs election. And that's the president's problem. He's perceived by six out of 10 Americans as doing a lousy job on the economy. If the Republicans can get their focus on maybe not an entitlement war, but that, I think they can beat the president. If not, they may...

MR. ROBINSON: But the question is, though, which party, which candidate can develop a message on jobs that connects with voters? I would argue that the president hasn't really done that. I would argue that the Republicans have not done that.

MR. GREGORY: But the Democrats...

MR. ROBINSON: If the Republicans don't, I think the president...(unintelligible).

MR. GREGORY: Well, let me ask you, let me ask you about this.

MR. SORKIN: It's about trying to tell a jobs story...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. SORKIN: ...and the Republicans are trying to tell a deficit story. Right? How do we reduce--that's the distinction.

MR. GREGORY: Well, let me ask then about another, another candidate, Jon Huntsman. He is, of course, the returning ambassador for the Obama administration in China. He was in New Hampshire this past week. He's positioning himself for a run. He's in a gun store in New Hampshire. He was a former governor of Utah, so he's trying to shore up those credentials. But what's interesting about him is that he's positioning himself not as a gun-toting conservative candidate, but as a more pragmatic candidate. Andrea Mitchell, is that going to fly in this Republican party?

MS. MITCHELL: It's, it's very much a big question, open question, as to whether Jon Huntsman can be viable in this party. Is he the place that the Bush family now goes having lost Mitch Daniels as a running horse?

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL: He's opened a campaign headquarters or he will open his campaign headquarters in Orlando. Does that, does that raise questions about his authenticity? Is he running away from his Mormon faith as the governor of Utah, opening the--it seems almost too cute, too obvious to open in Florida, your campaign headquarters, when you could choose any place in the country.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah. Do Democrats think he's formidable? Do you worry about him?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: I, I don't really worry a lot about Huntsman. I mean, we're obviously just watching this Republican field play out, the thinning of the field. It would be great to have Don Trump back. But let me say this.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: No, right now, look, the president--no we don't because, as we were saying, at least the president, I mean, all kidding aside, the president has been focused on jobs. And as part of this deficit debate...

MS. MITCHELL: That hasn't translated yet.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: ...he has said his number one priority is to make sure that we continue to be able to compete with our major overseas competitors, with China and India and all the others.

MS. MITCHELL: The polling doesn't reflect that people are getting that, though.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah. He's focused, but people don’t see it that way.

REP. VAN HOLLEN: But more so than anybody on the other side.

MR. GREGORY: But do you worry, Congressman, that if unemployment doesn't get below 8.2, 8 percent, that he can't win?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: I don't worry that he can't win, but clearly, you know, the--this election will be about the economy at the end of the day. But it's also going to be about people's vision for the economy and where they want to go. And again, so far we've seen nothing from the Republicans as to how they would do anything better than the President.

MR. MURPHY: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: Mike, can I just talk about Iowa...

MR. MURPHY: Sure.

MR. GREGORY: ...which is something you were thinking about this week. You wrote about it in Time magazine--I'll put what you said up on the screen--in terms of Iowa strategy and how it's sort of influencing how the Republicans are starting to run and position themselves in the state. Do we have that ready? Can we put that up? It is that "the caucuses weed out about half of Iowa's GOP-primary voters." You wrote, "[I]t attracts the intense and increasingly ideological voters who like their political meat served raw. And since the caucus vote is splintered among several candidates, as few as 40,000 votes are often enough to win. No wonder Michele Bachmann is out buying snowshoes." Your point being, Iowa should not have as much juice as it has, but since it has it...

MR. MURPHY: Right.

MR. GREGORY: ...does Michele Bachmann, does Sarah Palin have more room to run there and make a real dent?

MR. MURPHY: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm very fond of Iowa, I have many friends there. But I think the caucus has become a bit of a Harold Hill type thing, all its own now, where the Iowans are selling the band instruments with this big, expensive process. That's why I wrote about it. I do think, look, three million people live in Iowa, and if you get 40,000 of them together, you can win the caucus and get on a rocket sled in national politics. If I had to bet now, I'd bet Michele Bachmann in, in a field that's shrinking a little, but it'll have enough candidates, can win around a third of the vote, maybe a little less. That could help Huntsman as the kind of anti-Bachmann, the more moderate candidate in much more moderate New Hampshire, then the rest of the primaries become tougher for Huntsman. So I think Iowa almost becomes more of a disruptive factor now, that small turn out caucus for us...

MR. GREGORY: Andrea, I want to ask you, you know, Mitt Romney in many ways had a good week. At the beginning of the week, he announced a huge haul in fundraising, over $10 million, which made it very clear that this is a guy who can keep on standing and still take a lot of punches over the long haul. And going back to Gingrich, on this question of the individual mandate, which is part, of course, of the president's healthcare plan, this was the exchange that I had with Gingrich over the individual mandate, which is something he supported back in the '90s. This is what he said.

REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most Libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond, or in some way you indicate you're going to be held accountable.

MR. GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

REP. GINGRICH: It's a variation on it.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: He's given some cover here and this is the most, you know, the biggest issue here for Republicans. That got less attention.

MR. MURPHY: Sure.

MR. GREGORY: But he said he's not going to go after Romney on health care.

MS. MITCHELL: If Romney can deal with the healthcare issue, and he hasn't yet, then Romney does become the last man standing and Mitch Daniels being out of it, Huckabee being out, of course, opens up that whole space for a family values, social conservative, which is why Michele Bachmann looks so good for Iowa right now. But Romney then could be the alternative. If Huntsman proves what a lot of candidates have proved in the past, that when--if you're new to politics, it's not that easy to become the national candidate on--with all the exposure and intensity of that stage.

MR. GREGORY: Gene, point?

MR. ROBINSON: I just want to point out that this is real confusion and chaos in the Republican field. However, when push comes to shove, as Mike knows, the Republican party's going to have a candidate.

MR. ROBINSON: That candidate is going to have a ton of money, and unless there's a third party candidate, the Republican candidate is pretty much guaranteed of a floor of say 45 percent of the, of the popular vote.

MR. GREGORY: And the candidate...

MR. ROBINSON: So...

MR. GREGORY: That candidate, that candidate on the right could be Herman Cain, who announced in Atlanta yesterday. Watch this.

(Videotape)

MR. HERMAN CAIN: Just to be clear, let me say it again, I'm running for president of the United States, and I'm not running for second.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Mike Murphy, he had a big crowed out in Atlanta yesterday.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah, I'll take a bet about whether or not he gets nominated.

MR. MURPHY: I don't think he has a resume. But he could be the interesting other candidate. And the thing about Romney is, everybody in Washington--he's a good friend of mine. I did his governor's race, but I try to be impartial about this. He is--there's not a lot of excitement. He's kind of like Mondale. But we got to remember that the tough slogger often is the one who gets nominated, and there's no doubt the nomination in this economy is worth having. So there will be some interest in Christie now, but ultimately, Romney's still the front-runner.

MR. GREGORY: All right. I'm going to take another break here. We're going to come back with our final segment, our Trends and Takeaways, what made news here, what to look for next week, and this rupture between the administration and, and Israel on a big day for the president speaking to the pro-Israel lobby. All of that right after this break.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: We're back in our final minutes here, our Trends and Takeaways segment, what made news, this hour. My interview with Paul Ryan has a lot of people talking in the digital space, online. He said that he was disappointed that the big story here this morning, Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, not running for president, that Chairman Ryan was disappointed about that and even fielded some questions about his own future. Watch.

(Videotape)

REP. RYAN: I'm not running for president. You never know what opportunities present themselves way down the road. I'm not talking about right now. And I want to focus on fixing the fiscal problems of this country.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Didn't close the door here. Mike Murphy, if we go to our TweetDeck board here in the studio, a lot of people are talking about this online, including my colleague Steve Hayes from The Weekly Standard, who tweets this: "Mitch Daniels out. Expect the pressure on Paul Ryan and Governor Christie to increase dramatically." Quickly, you, you agree with that?

MR. MURPHY: Well, the Paul Ryan thing is five guys at The Weekly Standard tweeting like mad right now. I take Ryan at his word, with all due respect to my friends there. I think there will be a moment for Christie, if he wants it. Easier said than done, and you peak the day you announce in this kind of politics, but...

MR. GREGORY: Well, and certainly a lot of discussion, as you imagine, on Twitter about who fills that space, kind of mirroring the conversation that we've been having here. This from geekgirldiva, "At this point, Paul Ryan may have to toss his hat into the ring." So I say, a lot of that conversation going on. At the same time, what's happening today, we want to take you live here in Washington, D.C., to the scene of AIPAC. This is the pro-Israel lobby, very powerful in the United States. The president will be speaking here, Andrea Mitchell, and this is on the heels of a rupture with Israel. The president said this week that any peace plan, a Palestinian state would have to go back to the borders of prior to the 1967 war. This was significant.

MS. MITCHELL: He did have language that said there would be land swaps to protect Israel's security, but it was taken as a red flag by Netanyahu. And what happened then was that even if this was implicit in things that previous presidents had said, Netanyahu seized on it. Even before he got on the plane, he criticized the president, and in such a fashion! He lectured him in the Oval Office. And if you look at that picture that you have up there right now, it was a stone-faced Barack Obama and Netanyahu basically treating him like a school boy. People even who work for Netanyahu, some of his Israeli officials, told him later that he went too far. That it was, it was really rude and that there would be blowback to this.

MR. GREGORY: And, Congressman, you know this well, having run a lot of campaigns, and for the party, particularly with a big Jewish vote in Florida. You have Governor Romney, Governor Pawlenty and others saying, essentially, that the president threw Israel under the bus. Is there going to be blowback here politically?

REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, first of all, I think that the--this will, this will blow over pretty quickly. I think that they'll be a quick reconciliation on this point. Number two, I think the Republicans make a very serious mistake if they decide to politicize this issue. The support for Israel in the United States has always been a bipartisan issue, and I don't think it serves anybody's interests, not the United States' interest, nor the interests of Israel, to have this become a big partisan issue. And let's remember, the president in his speech emphasized the fact that the United States has an unshakeable commitment to the security of Israel. He made it clear he does not expect the Israelis to deal with a coalition government with Hamas, so long as they refuse to renounce violence and refuse to accept the right of Israel. And finally, he threw cold water on the Palestinian idea of going to the United Nations. So there was a lot in here for...

MS. MITCHELL: But that's not what Netanyahu...

MR. GREGORY: Ten, ten seconds. Mike Murphy, does the president get a bad reception at this very important conference here in Washington?

MR. MURPHY: I think he'll be in full retreat, but I'll bet we pick up 75,000 votes in Florida, which could be a lot.

MR. GREGORY: Which you think is, will be significant.

MR. MURPHY: It was a clumsy move by the president. Just those sentences. The rest of the speech was great.

MR. GREGORY: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. This conversation continues. Thanks to all of you very much. You can hear more from Andrew Ross Sorkin, by the way, in our Take Two Web extra today. He is going to discuss his best-selling book on the 2008 financial crisis "Too Big to Fail." Now it's an HBO movie. It's debuting tomorrow. That's our Take Two Web extra. It's up on our website this afternoon, mtp.msnbc.com.

First ‘Meet the Press’ photo

December 4, 1947: The earliest photograph in existence of the longest running television program in history. Sen. Robert Taft was the guest on "Meet the Press" that day, less than a month after the program debuted on NBC television at 8 p.m., November 6, 1947. James A. Farley, the former postmaster general and former Democratic National Committee chairman, was the guest on the first broadcast.
(Meet the Press)
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Billy Graham

March 6, 1955: Rev. Billy Graham’s first "Meet the Press" appearance. He tells panelist (and program co-founder) Lawrence Spivak "anything that makes any race feel inferior ... is not only un-American but un-Christian."
(Meet the Press)
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Jackie Robinson

April 14, 1957: Jackie Robinson, the first man to break the racial barrier in Major League Baseball, also becomes the first athlete to appear on "Meet the Press." Robinson joins moderator Lawrence Spivak in a discussion about civil rights and Robinson’s work with the NAACP.
(Meet the Press)
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Eleanor Roosevelt

October 20, 1957: Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in one of her six "Meet the Press" appearances. Here she talks about her trip to the Soviet Union.
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Robert Frost

December 28, 1958: Poet Robert Frost was introduced by moderator Ned Brooks as "the poet of all America. Indeed, it can be said that he is the poet of all mankind." Two years later, Congress awarded Robert Frost a gold medal in recognition of his poetry, saying it enriched the culture of the United States and the philosophy of the world.
(Meet the Press)
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Fidel Castro

April 19, 1959: Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro appears on "Meet the Press" during his first visit to the United States since the revolution. Castro was annoyed that permanent panelist and producer Lawrence Spivak would not allow him to smoke cigars in the studio.
(Meet the Press)
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Martin Luthur King Jr.

April 17, 1960: Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., pictured here in one of his five "Meet the Press" appearances.
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John F. Kennedy

October 16, 1960: After this interview, then-Senator John F. Kennedy calls Meet the Press the nation's "fifty-first state."
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Jimmy Hoffa

July 9, 1961:This first "Meet the Press" appearance by Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa had to be rescheduled several times due to Hoffa’s string of indictments. After the interview, Hoffa was furious about being asked whether his insistence on dealing only in cash and keeping few records gave the appearance of impropriety.
(Meet the Press)
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Edward Kennedy

March 11, 1962: Edward Kennedy’s first appearance on the program. The potential Senate candidate was coached by his older brother, President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy and his aide Theodore Sorensen prepared "Teddy" for his “Meet the Press” debut by staging a run through of questions and answers in the Oval Office. On the day of the program, President Kennedy delayed his departure from Palm Beach in order to watch the show, but later told his brother that he was almost too nervous to watch.
(Meet the Press)
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Bob Dole

July 16, 1972: Bob Dole and "Meet the Press" moderator Lawrence Spivak prepare to discuss the break-in and bugging of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate. Former Senator Dole holds the record for the most appearances on “Meet the Press” in a career that included service as a Congressman, Senator, RNC Chairman, vice presidential candidate, Senate Majority Leader and finally, Republican presidential nominee.
(Meet the Press)
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Prime Minister Wilson

September 19, 1965: "Meet the Press" conducts television’s very first live satellite interview. The guest is British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
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Ronald Reagan

September 11, 1966: Ronald Reagan, making his first bid for public office, appears on "Meet the Press" with his Democratic opponent for the governorship of California, the incumbent Gov. Edmund G. Brown. Reagan appeared on "Meet the Press" seven times -- all before he was elected president.
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Robert Kennedy

March 17, 1968: Senator Robert F. Kennedy makes his ninth -- and final -- appearance on "Meet the Press" with Lawrence E. Spivak. Kennedy was assassinated in California less than 3 months later -- shortly after claiming victory in that state's Democratic presidential primary. He was 42 years old.
(Meet the Press)
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John Kerry

April 18, 1971: John Kerry, then a former Navy Lieutenant, makes his first "Meet the Press" appearance as a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He has since appeared on the program as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts 21 times.
(Meet the Press)
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Golda Meir

December 5, 1971: Golda Meir, prime minister of Israel, appears on “Meet the Press” with moderator Bill Monroe to discuss the continuing instability in the Middle East and the prospect of meeting and negotiating with Egypt’s leaders.
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Prime Minister Gandhi

August 24, 1975: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in one of her seven appearances on "Meet the Press" before her assassination in October 1984. After she was elected Prime Minister in 1966, Gandhi grew more concerned about her television image and contacted "Meet the Press" to request makeup samples used during her appearance on the program. The program’s makeup artist consulted her notes and sent Mrs. Gandhi a complete makeup set -- including sponges and instructions for application.
(Meet the Press)
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Gerald Ford

November 9, 1975: President Gerald Ford becomes the first sitting American president to appear on the program. President Ford accepted the invitation as a tribute to "Meet the Press" co-founder Lawrence Spivak, who was making his farewell appearance as moderator of the program.
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Jimmy Carter

January 20, 1980: In one of the most dramatic newsbreaks in the history of "Meet the Press" President Jimmy Carter announces that the U.S. would boycott the Moscow Summer Olympics because of the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Despite initial outrage over Carter’s proposal, 60 nations eventually joined the boycott.
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Richard Nixon

April 10, 1988: In his first Sunday interview in 20 years, Former President Richard Nixon reacts to a comment on "Meet the Press.
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Tim Russert's first show

December 8, 1991: Tim Russert makes his debut as moderator of "Meet the Press." He has since become the longest-serving moderator in "Meet the Press" history. In the center of this photo is then-intern Betsy Fischer, who is now Executive Producer of the program.
(Meet the Press)
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Dan Quayle

September 20, 1992: "Meet the Press" permanently expands from a half-hour to a one hour program. Vice President Dan Quayle is the guest.
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Shaheen and Whitman

February 2, 1997: The broadcast breaks television history as "Meet the Press" becomes the first network television program ever to broadcast live in digital high definition. Governors Jeanne Shaheen and Christie Todd Whitman share a light moment on the set that day.
(Charles Rex Arbogast / AP)
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Bill Clinton

November 9, 1997: President Bill Clinton appears in studio on "Meet the Press" to mark the program’s 50th anniversary.
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Al Gore

December 19, 1999: In a live Democratic presidential debate, Vice President Al Gore challenges former Sen. Bill Bradley to a "Meet the Press agreement" to have weekly debates in place of running political advertisements.
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Dick Cheney

September 16, 2001: Five days after the September 11th attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney joins moderator Tim Russert in the first live television interview ever broadcast from Camp David.
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Senate Debate Series

September 22, 2002: "Meet the Press" kicks off its "Senate Debate Series" with the Colorado Senate race: Republican Incumbent Sen. Wayne Allard vs. Democratic Challenger Tom Strickland. At the end of the election cycle, the series of three senate debates was awarded the prestigious "USC Walter Cronkite Journalism Award" for "Excellence in Broadcast TV Political Journalism." The debate series continued in 2004 and 2006.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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George W. Bush

February 8, 2004: President George W. Bush kicks off his re-election campaign in an Oval Office interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." Robert Novak went on to write about the interview, "no president ever before had been subjected to such tough questioning in the Oval Office."
(Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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James Carville

November 14, 2004: In another "Meet the Press" first, Democratic strategist James Carville cracks an egg on his forehead to demonstrate he's got "egg on his face" after his projected outcome of the U.S. presidential election was wrong. Carville predicted 52 percent of the vote for U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), 47 percent for President George W. Bush and 1 percent for Ralph Nader.
(Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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Jim Webb

November 19, 2006: The first edition of "Meet the Press" to be available via video netcast on the show’s Web site. U.S. Senator-elect Jim Webb (D-Va.) joins moderator Tim Russert on that program.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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June 15, 2008: The chair of late moderator Tim Russert sits empty on the set during the first MTP taping following Russert's death. He died June 13, 2008 of a heart attack while at the NBC News bureau in Washington. He was 58 years old.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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President-elect Obama

December 7, 2008: President-elect Barack Obama makes his first Sunday morning television appearance since winning the election to discuss the challenges facing this country and the upcoming transition of power.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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David Gregory

December 7, 2008: Interim moderator Tom Brokaw announces that David Gregory has been chosen as the new moderator of the show.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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Rendell, Schwarzenegger & Bloomberg

March 22, 2009: Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Penn.), Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared exclusively on Meet the Press one day after meeting with President Obama to discuss the economy.
(Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images for Meet the Press)
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Hillary Clinton

July 26, 2009: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears for a full-hour on Meet the Press. It's her first appearance on the program since joining the Obama administration.
(William B. Plowman / NBC Universal)
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President Obama

September 20, 2009: President Barack Obama sits down with David Gregory at the White House for Obama's first MTP appearance since taking office.
(Pete Souza / The White House)
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.